ABSTRACT

Richard Layard was a Utilitarian and of the view that it was in the nation's economic interests to support and promote the psychological wellbeing of their citizens. He was casting about for how to go about doing this. Then one evening in 2003 at a tea party for the great and the good at the British Academy, Layard bumped into David Clark, a leading figure within the world of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). It was this chance meeting that would light the fuse which triggered the CBT tsunami. Layard and Clark used this moment to produce a short, but powerful manifesto, 'The Depression Report: A New Deal for Anxiety and Depression Disorders' (2006), calling for a change in the Government's priorities regarding its citizens' wellbeing. At its most condensed, the Report claims that CBT is the royal road to happiness. The point bears repeating: unhappiness is a symptom of a mental disease called depression or anxiety or something else.