Prozac on the Couch: Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs

Prozac on the Couch is a groundbreaking book that challenges recent psychiatric history by revealing the surprising ways Freudian gender categories have shaped our understanding of popular drugs for depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses.

Through a cultural history of three "wonder drugs" - Miltown, Valium, and Prozac - Metzl explains how clinical and popular talk about these medications often reproduces the cultural and social baggage associated with psychoanalytic paradigms.

By locating the origins of psychiatry's "biological revolution" in American popular culture of the 1950s, Metzl provides a fresh perspective on the history of psychotropic medications and their impact on our understanding of mental illness.

This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the cultural and social factors that shape our understanding of mental health and the role of drugs in treating mental illness.