ABSTRACT
The focus of the chapter is the development of a 'prescription culture' and its representation in contemporary novels and self-help books. By a 'prescription culture' the author means a culture in which taking prescribed drugs for common mental health symptoms such as anxiety and depression becomes an unquestioned or naturalized part of the cultural fabric. In the northern hemisphere certainly, people lives in a culture in which prescription drugs are discussed as separated out from the persons who are taking them, to become recognizable artefactual 'actors' in their own right with 'personalities'. The argument on the distribution of the sensible, the development, administration and evaluation of commonly taken anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs is part of the political regulation of sensibility. A critical view suggests that, largely driven by the profit motives of the pharmaceutical industry, psychological conditions continue to be medicalized and treated as if they were neurological.
