Full Description
Mental illness is a leading cause of suffering in the modern world. In sheer numbers, it afflicts at least 20 percent of people in developed countries. It reduces life expectancy as much as smoking does, accounts for nearly half of all disability claims, is behind half of all worker sick days, and affects educational achievement and income. There are effective tools for alleviating mental illness, but most sufferers remain untreated or undertreated. What should be done to change this? In Thrive, Richard Layard and David Clark argue for fresh policy approaches to how we think about and deal with mental illness, and they explore effective solutions to its miseries and injustices. Layard and Clark show that modern psychological therapies are highly effective and could potentially turn around the lives of millions of people at little or no cost. This is because treating psychological problems generates huge savings on physical health care, as well as massive economic savings through more people working. So psychological therapies would effectively pay for themselves, generating potential savings for nations the world over.
Layard and Clark describe how various successful psychological treatments have been developed and explain what works best for whom. They also discuss how mental illness can be prevented through better schools and a better society, and the urgency of doing so. Illustrating why we cannot afford to ignore the issue of mental illness, Thrive opens the door to new options and possibilities for one of the most serious problems facing us today.
Contents
Foreword by Daniel Kahneman ix Preface xv Part One: The Problem 1 1. What's the Problem? 3 2. What Is Mental Illness? 17 3. How Many Suffer? 39 4. Do They Get Help? 53 5. How Does It Affect People's Lives? 65 6. The Economic Cost 83 7. What Causes Mental Illness? 93 Part Two: What Can Be Done? 115 8. Does Therapy Work? 117 9. How Therapies Are Developed 133 10. What Works for Whom? 153 11. Can We Aff ord More Therapy? 181 12. Improving Access to Psychological Therapies 193 13. What Works for Young People? 219 14. Can We Prevent Mental Illness? 229 15. Would a Better Culture Help? 245 16. Stop This Pain 259 Our Thanks 267 Sources of Tables and Diagrams 271 List of Annexes 275 Notes 277 References 319 Index 367
