Antidepressant Found to Alter Personality

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Are you introverted yourself? Based upon your comment, I really don't think you are. Please do not speak for those of us who truely are intoverted unless you have something real to contribute.

Emily of CA 12:28AM February 27, 2010

Let me Rephrase. NOT everyone is happy with being an introvert. Lets quit acting like ALL introverts love the isolation and mental draining when trying to enjoy people

jason of NE 12:16AM December 14, 2009

Shut the F up! Now everyone is happy with being an introvert

jason of NE 12:15AM December 14, 2009

This is another gsk funded attempt to shine up a turd that just wont shine. Paxil is one of the most toxic drugs ever put on the market. And yes, that professor IS a dork.

David Logue of GA 5:10PM December 13, 2009

http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/What_is_Gifted/learned.htm
"About 60% of gifted children are introverted compared with 30% of the general population. Approximately 75% of highly gifted children are introverted."
They do not need to be drugged to deal with harassment from extraverts in the population.
Instead, extraverts should be sent for "sensitivity" training. Let them get "treatment" for being insensitive to the more insightful and cerebral.
Introverts need not beat themselves up at all (which is probably part of what may be causing the downers in some cases).
You're probably special, not in need of drugging.

Intro Bored With Extraverts of IL 1:36AM December 12, 2009

"Patients who experienced especially pronounced personality change during four months of Paxil treatment displayed a particularly low depression relapse rate over the next year of treatment, Tang’s team reports in the December Archives of General Psychiatry."
Has the prof. not taken stats? Correlation does not imply causation. All this means is there is some correlation between between introversion (a highly respected trait in many East Asians, albeit for some reason, completely out of the "norm" for a bunch of loud-mouthed, reality tv trying-out-for extraverted Westerners) and neurotic tendencies.
Now, assuming a personality change towards a more extraverted temperament, could it be that the other loud-mouthed extraverts are now more accepting of the introverts, hence they are feeling less harassed?
There are entire nations in East Asia chock full of cerebral temperaments that are much more introverted (or better balanced between the two traits--some people utilize both, though many tend to have a stronger preference one way or the other), yet it's not drugged into submission over there.
What on Earth is wrong with Northwestern's psych department? Are they all so seemingly clueless over there, or what? This is supposed to be an "elite" research university, and yet you read this bizarre assumption that doesn't quite seem as if a case has been proven in terms of whether or not the trait, itself, is what needs "treatment."
How about inventing a pill to make extraverts shut up and listen to others a little more often? Oh, and to respect the more thoughtful, creative, and cerebral folks? Would introverts suddenly get less labeling as pathological when it's clearly a NORMAL trait?
The only introversion that's in need of radical personality change alteration is schizophrenia. That's severeness of the trait. The rest is just normal, except in Western culture (and apparently over at Northwestern's goofy psych department).
Shame on US News for not offering a rebuttal from creativity and giftedness researchers. They would probably have quite different things to say about introverts, no doubt.

Shaking Head of IL 1:27AM December 12, 2009

I used to take Paxil as an antidepressant when I was very young. I was suffering from terrible depression as a child for uncertain reasons. One of my few outlets for depression as a youth was through art, literature, and writing - all creative outputs. However in spite of these outlets I still found myself depressed for other reasons, and my creative outlets would only temporarily alleviate my problems.
With Paxil, I no longer suffered the depression that I previously had dealt with, and for that reason I was really happy. However I found after being on Paxil for some time that I no longer able to 'summon the creative juices', so to speak. I was no longer reading, writing, drawing, taking photos of the outdoors... none of the right-brained activities that I previously enjoyed with great enthusiasm brought me happiness.
When I brought this to my doctor's attention, close review of my medication history showed that there was a good chance that the Paxil was causing a lacking in my previous creative desires. Something like that was a big problem for me, and not a sacrifice I wished to make.
I've been off of Paxil for several years now, and in that time I've overcome my depression with therapy and without the aid of medications. Added to this is my strong continuing desire to create, learn, and enjoy the arts.
While I agree that Paxil has great potential for curing depression, I have to point out that it poses a great risk in damaging a younger persons ability to create. Without art, what is meaning?

Nathan of NC 10:44PM December 08, 2009

"The two traits, high neuroticism and low extraversion, have already been linked to depression."
Maybe the extraverts harass the introverts for being more cerebral than the typical extraverts in the population, which is part of the cause of any neuroticism within introverts?
Maybe they don't need any pharmaceuticals if they accept themselves, more, for unique traits that extraverts lack?
Seriously, the idea of drugging everyone into conformity with an overall extraverted nation is crazy. But it brings in billions for pharma companies, no doubt.

Wondering about the safety of anything that severely alters naturally selected for personalities of IN 8:18PM December 08, 2009

As Harry Lime famously said "...in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Some of our greatest artists were introverts. If Paxil were around would we still have the art? There seems to me something wrong when we stigmatize introversion or lack of assertiveness as something bad. Sure, depression can be a debilitating thing, yet Rachmaninov fought it all his life.
I don't mean to suggest that with every depression lies great art, but what I would hope comes with these ever increasing set of pharmaceutical tools is also some sort of wisdom on how and when to prescribe them. I myself fight depression, but I have balked at getting treatment like this simply because I find it hard to accept a chemical change as being still me.

James of KY 5:05PM December 08, 2009