Medical happiness

This in the Guardian today, about a GP who says that his fellow medics should get involved in the business of happiness. He talks about techniques of becoming happy, such as focussing on a positive event from the last day, which will automatically improve our mood. Allworthwhile stuff, I'm sure, though some of his suggestions are at the life-coaching end of psychology.

The most interesting point, though, is that he successfully sued his then employers, the local Health Authority, for working him too hard back in the 1980s. As a junior doctor, he regularly worked 80+ hours per week. The Court of Appeal finally ruled in his favour - your employer has a duty of care toward you, and this does not involve working you so hard you could die. I think that this will be his greatest contribution to overall happiness in this country.

The thing about the medical approaches he discsusses in the article is that they are more of a treatment for unhappiness. Overwork, stress, tiredness - they are all causes. One of the reasons I am sceptical about life coachy type solutions is that they do not treat causes. None of the books that will Make You Happy that get advertised on the tube are ever going to tell you to quit your job, or go and retrain as a gardener like you always wanted to. They are always too focussed on a very narrow definition of Success! for You! to recommend something as awesome as that.

There's an interesting parallel, then, with therapy. Does, for instance, CBT, about which there was a lot of excitement about a year ago , treat the causes of unhappiness or simply pick people up once they've become unhappy? Moreover, does it treat lots of individuals' individual symptoms, where there is a larger societal cause at work?