The misery industry that wants us to think we're all going mad

An Opinion piece from the Daily Mail

No sooner had Jade Goody checked out of the Priory - where, of course, she'd had to go for 'treatment' because people were being horrid to her - than Robbie Williams woke up on Tuesday and decided to celebrate his 33rd birthday in style: he checked himself into a clinic, because the medicines his doctor had been prescribing him were making him altogether too warm and fuzzy.

Meanwhile, as Robbie slipped into his designer straitjacket, psychologist Oliver James was holding forth on Radio 4' s You And Yours on the subject of 'Affluenza', which is not only the natty name he has given to an ailment of his very own invention, but also the title of his new book.

The programme's host was pleased to help out. 'We may be better off as a nation,' he intoned, 'but are we really happy?'

He then summed up 'affluenza' as follows 'A contagious, middle-class virus, causing depression, anxiety, addiction and ennui' - which, by the way, we deserve because we place too high a value on money, possessions, appearance and fame.

So that's Goody, Williams, thee and me all bang to rights then.

What was hard to believe, however, was that as James continued to spout forth on the subject, he went wholly unchallenged. He used, with unquestioned authority, the word 'virus' over and over again, for all the world as if he were talking about bird flu (memo to You And Yours: a virus is an infectious particle with a core of DNA enclosed in a protein shell - it is not a pattern of social behaviour as presumed by a media-friendly shrink).

But here is the best bit: according to James, the English-speaking Western world - which is to say, basically, us and the Yanks - is twice as likely to suffer a mental illness as those in mainland Europe; indeed, some 26.4 per cent, compared with 11.5 per cent, in the past 12 months alone. 'Think,' he thundered, 'how serious this is!'

I'll tell you what's serious - and that is that anybody at all, let alone the better brains at the BBC, is prepared to allow the 'fact' to be broadcast that a quarter of us, in any given year, are bonkers.

What's serious is that the English-speaking Western world, about which Mr James purports to be so concerned, has become the home of the pernicious misery industry that thrives on taking common-or-garden, everyday unhappiness, turning it into an 'illness' - and then selling us the 'treatment' for it, be that in costly drug form or in the lucrative counselling trade that boasts upwards of 10,000 practitioners in its well-paid army.

Or, of course, in books that profit all manner of Oliver Jameses.

What's serious is that we're sitting back and letting it happen to us. There is, let us be very clear, such a thing as depressive illness. If you have experienced it or even been close to somebody who has, you will know what a godawful, destructive thing it is and you will agree that all stops must be pulled out for genuine sufferers.

But that is a world away from the 'experts' bent on persuading us that we are all ill, before laughing their way to the bank with the proceeds.

In a single generation, we have been suckered out of our reserves of inner strength into a blind acceptance that poor, fragile little us simply cannot cope without them.

Once upon a time, though, not so long ago, we knew what unhappiness was: it was the thing that ruined a day, a week or a month between the sun that shone before it and the sun that would shine again when it moved on.

It was a natural, healthy response to rotten things happening, most usually to a loss: a love lost, a job lost, a beloved dog lost to the kennel in the sky.

Most of us found our way through it, buoyed by the experience that promised us this, too, shall pass. Wet nights weeping, maybe; long and solitary walks; the comfort of a friend's ear; the slightly heavier-than-usual hand when pouring a drop of Scotch.

Then along came the clever clogs who spotted a gap in the market that sold us all the rest of our comforts: just as we might not put up with cold in winter (central heating) or heat in summer (air conditioning) or hard labour (household appliances), so we could buy our way out of the discomfort of misery.

Even our children now think not only that they have a right to the pursuit of happiness, but a right to attain it, too. If they're slow to make friends or frustrated by school, if they are bored, restless, lonely, sad or worried by the world around them - reach for the Ritalin, Mum. The bill's in the post.

The frightening thing about the misery industry is that it is self-perpetuating. Every time professional help is accepted, natural resilience is eroded that bit more. We lose faith in the instinctive ability to cope that has made us the most powerful species in the known universe and retreat, instead, into the welcoming arms of defeat.

Right now, the captains of this industry must be laughing themselves silly. They don't really want us to feel better; if we did, they'd be out of a job. What use to a shrink is a happy soul? Naturally, he will always discover new 'issues' that, in his professional opinion, we haven't dealt with.

Where would Oliver James, or any other self-help author, be if the nation were shorn of its 'virus of depression, anxiety, addiction and ennui'?

It's hardly surprising that his advised solutions, among them capping top earners and taking a nought off all house prices, are totally unrealisable.

There is no point, mind, in laying all the blame for our increasing dependence upon those who profit from it. We are being suckered, but only because we are suckers.

I am not prepared to believe we are twice as likely to be mentally ill as mainland Europeans; I am prepared to believe that we have emulated our American cousins by calling ourselves mentally ill every time we feel a little less than chipper.

Can you imagine the average Italian flopping into a clinic because his girlfriend left him? Neither can I. He'd be more likely to weep copiously, in a lusty, manly manner, then cheer himself up with a new Prada suit.

By contrast - and if you really want depressing, this is it - Sky News assured us this week that Robbie Williams will be all right because, 'last time he went into rehab, he emerged with his marketing image reinvigorated'. Good grief!

Much as I would hate to return to the Dark Ages when revealing our insecurities was treated as shameful, isn't there some sensible ground between feeling shame if you can't cope and taking pride that you won't?