ABSTRACT
A period of happiness may or may not have coincided with good health, but the odds are it did. Physical ill health tends to have a negative impact on emotional well-being, but it doesn’t have to. It is possible to feel good, emotionally, even when psychotherapists are unwell. It’s a myth that psychotherapists only find happiness or contentment when everything is sorted in life, when we have no problems and enough money. One of the earliest theories about the causes of mental health and well-being was formulated by Plato and Hippo crates and later amplified by Aretaeus of Cappadocia, a Greek physician of the first century CE. Feelings or emotions are learned very early in life, before we have language. As a consequence, we cannot remember what behaviours caused different emotions so it is hard for to work out how our feelings have developed.
