Some professionals believe serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro, Paxil, and Celexa have the power to change one’s personality—defined as relatively stable, enduring patterns of behaviors and thoughts that characterize the individual. Yes, a client can have enhanced self-esteem and diminished sensitivity to criticism and rejection while on medication, but do these changes mean that changes in their personality have occurred?
Many professionals do not think so. First, if these medications are so powerful in changing personality, then how do we explain the many instances when no significant or enduring clinical effects occur? Second, research shows that patients’ symptoms often return when they stop taking medication. Again, the drugs produce no enduring changes in one’s character traits; changes are temporary and superficial. Third, we cannot separate taking anti-depressant medication from the knowledge one is doing so, or from the fact that behavior or situational changes might occur while taking the medication. Thus, if you think, feel, or act differently while on medication, you may attribute these changes to the medication; but the true cause may be an expectancy (placebo) effect, or situational changes in your life, or changes due to your ongoing psychotherapy. Fourth, when they work, anti-depressants tend to return the patient to that personality manifest prior to the depression problem. The medication does not permanently change personality.
Permanent changes in your personality require conscious and concerted effort to change your behavior. If you change your behavior while on anti-depressant medication, you may think you have undergone personality change. Without some deliberate attempt to change your behavior, however, there is no permanent and fundamental change in personality as we defined it. Anti-depressants—which can restore your optimism, confidence, energy, and sociability—do not appear to permanently change your characteristic ways of thinking and acting. But that’s OK, and feeling that you are a “new person” is also OK. It helps to remember, however, that the medicine has treated symptoms; you are the same person you were before the med regimen. That means you must use the newly-found energy and optimism to face your core conflicts and work toward modifying your personality characteristics to help you live a more productive and satisfying life. That effort must come from you because it will not come from the medication.
Psychology and Stress 