Is Unhappiness A Symptom Or A Passing Phase?

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 20:26:06 +0000

I am troubled by a recurrent practice in the popular literature on the theme of happiness and the economics of happiness. It’s an intellectual sloppiness that I try to guard against but it happens from time to time. The practice is this. There are many articles that comment on happiness by dragging in statistics about anxiety and depression to bolster the perception/argument that unhappiness is endemic. One proof that is frequently aired is the sheer volume of prescriptions for anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications that is dispensed in the UK, US, name the country under discussion.

Horwitz and Wakefield have offered an excellent overview of what my wife would refer to as the semantic shift of the word depression and what used to be understood by it. Apparently, 300 years ago silly used to mean innocent or blessed rather than its current connotations. In a much faster variation of this process, depression seems to have shifted from a medically defined term to one that is readily used (almost as a metaphor in its own right) to describe any negative emotional state: no matter how appropriate that reaction might be under the circumstances.

It is not unusual to come across reports that claim more than half of the population will develop a mental disorder at some time over the course of life. This immediately raises the issue of what constitutes mental health and mental illness. Although there are internationally standardised criteria for the latter, their application varies enormously. And even psychiatrists can not provide a united front as to where the boundary lies.

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Is Unhappiness A Symptom Or A Passing Phase?