Peter D. Kramer Biography

Peter D. Kramer (born October 22, 1948), is an American psychiatrist and faculty member of Brown Medical School specializing in the area of clinical depression. Kramer considers depression to be a serious disease with tangible physiological effects such as disorganizing the brain and disrupting the functioning of the cardiovascular system. In his work he has criticized society for romanticizing depression in the same way that tuberculosis was once romanticized; these romantic notions involve claims of artistic sensitivity or of genius arising from depression.