The philosophical and political aim of increasing the happiness of the population is not new; Aristotle wrote about it over 2000 years ago and the pursuit of happiness was enshrined in the constitutions of both post-independence America and post-revolutionary France in the 18th Century. However, what is more novel is the development of specific policies and governmentally sponsored institutions geared towards achieving this aim.
Guest blogger Dr Mike Forsythe writes….
The tally chart scribbled on the back of an old patient information leaflet sits on the desk in front of me, and it doesn’t make any sense. There’s a happy face on one side, a sad face on the other, and beneath each poorly drawn emoji a collection of dashes providing a pictorial representation of my morning clinic; a clinic that has left me exhausted and demoralised. There were sixteen patients in all, and I have been left with the overwhelming impression that the morning has been an unmitigated disaster.
Altruism provides something of an evolutionary conundrum. Darwin told us that the fittest will survive to reproduce and pass their genes onto the next generation. Logic tells us then that people should try to maximise their fitness in order to maximise their chances of reproducing. But altruism is a willful act of self-sacrifice for the benefit of someone else. It is deliberately reducing your own fitness to help someone else.
As humans we are pre-disposed to bonding in groups. We all know the joy in belonging, whether that’s to a family group, a sports team, or some kind of club or society. We rapidly develop a sense of loyalty to groups to which we feel we belong, this is known as ‘in-group loyalty’. At its most intense in-group loyalty takes the form of ‘identity fusion’ which is when a person feels a visceral sense of belonging to a group, a sensation so strong that the person primarily identifies themselves as a member of the group rather than an individual (1).
Depression, anxiety and other mental health problems are incredibly common. It’s estimated that around 1 in 6 people suffer from problems such as these in any given week in the UK(1). Nearly a million people each year are treated by NHS psychological services with an ambition to treat 1.5 million by the year 2020/21. Rates of antidepressant prescriptions are also rising with about 82 people out of every 1000 in the UK now taking antidepressant medication (2).
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