It can be no coincidence that on the day Mad World suggested that the government needed to roll out its talking therapy programme it announced a £170m scheme to do just that.
When Mad World sneezes, the Department of Health catches a cold.
Anyway, it's got to be good news. The government believes 900,000 more people with depression or anxiety will have access to a therapist. Most will receive cognitive behavioural therapy it seems, and half will experience recovery if official test results are to be believed.
The mental health world has welcomed the initiative but it seems a backlash against the scheme has already begun. An opinion piece in the Guardian labels the scheme a "dark age" for mental health because of its reliance on CBT, which it argues only treats symptoms and will leave underlying problems unresolved. Some of the comments beneath the piece are also very interesting and challenge the author's assumptions.
I'm familiar with some of the arguments against CBT and I guess in an ideal world people would all have the choice of long-term psychotherapy if they wanted it. But I don't buy the idea that it won't do any good over the long term. At the moment most people are just prescribed medication for anxiety and depression and a new approach which helps people understand why they act in a certain way and gives them strategies for change has got to be a good thing. I'd be interested to hear what people think though.
Meanwhile, a new book has been published looking at how experiences such as shyness have been redefined as illnesses. Read an article about it on Science Daily.
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