\nHealthcare<\/strong> – We treat people in terms of distinct specialised diagnoses and conditions rather than as ‘whole’ people. We prioritise physical over mental health <\/p>\n
Finance<\/strong> – We have a system that tends towards inequality and division, undervalues altruism and cooperation and makes it easy to evade accountability and responsibility<\/p>\n
Legal system<\/strong> = We treat people unfairly. People who are already disadvantaged by their backgrounds are often punished for it, and the punishments often just make matters worse<\/p>\n
Educational system<\/strong> – we are teaching young people knowledge and skills that are inappropriate for the age of the internet, robots and artificial intelligence<\/p>\n
Employment<\/strong> – we fail to capitalise on peoples’ knowledge, skills and motivations because the job market is distorted to the needs of current employers, products and services and the markets they create through advertising and other manipulations<\/p>\n
Business<\/strong> – we are increasingly controlled by large global corporations that capitalise on automation and economies of scale to create a standardised and impersonal world<\/p>\n
Politics<\/strong> – Are our leaders and governments really being elected through democratic processes or are those with power able to unfairly influence the system to their advantage?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Even as our understandings about human nature improve, we are using much of our new knowledge in fragmentary and inappropriate ways to the disadvantage of many and society generally.<\/strong> For example, new understandings about cognitive limitations and biases are being used by big business to present us with ‘terms and conditions’ we cannot possibly read or understand, and to offer services (e.g. banking and telecommunications services) with default conditions that can be easily infringed, and incur prohibitive costs if the terms of service are not strictly adhered to. This is no accident – it is the way in which many companies make profits. The marketing and advertising industry is also notorious for playing on our fears and our basic instincts to sell products and services. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\nIs this just a rant?<\/h3>\n
Whilst a lot of these ideas presented are based on the work of many others and commentators, and form what might be termed \u2018the zeitgeist\u2019, some are motivated by my own experiences, and can to some extent be seen as a rant. Nevertheless, I hope that you will stay with my argument and my own account or \u2018story\u2019 about what is going on.\u00a0 Although it is partly my attempt to reconcile the dissonance between my own experience and the way I naively thought things ought to be, I believe it reveals and evidences some more general truths.\u00a0 Also, I claim that the approach based on a personal attempt to seek coherence does something that science rarely does \u2013 which is put it all together into a single picture.<\/p>\n
So while I use my own experience as motivation, the argument I make is much more general.\u00a0 Just as one (amongst many) simple illustration of this, consider for a moment, our changing views on the relationship between money and happiness.\u00a0 Increasingly, in the developed world, we are accumulating evidence that above a certain level of wealth, money doesn\u2019t make us any happier, and that whatever a person\u2019s financial circumstances, their wellbeing is more dependent on a sense of orientation, meaning, purpose and control.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
A subtle confusion has arisen between value in financial terms and other forms of value. This is partly because money can not only be used to satisfy unmet needs but also to effect control. Many people believe that money will make you happy and that others that have more money are happier, are more independent, have more choice, and can exercise more control over their destiny.\u00a0 But this is only partly true.\u00a0 There is a correlation with wellbeing at low levels of wealth but almost none at high levels. As a result of the confusion, a universal and probably mainly unconscious myth has grown up that equates financial success with wellbeing, as if these were perfectly correlated. Unfortunately, much of economic theory that drives the design of systems of remuneration, is based on this flawed assumption. This is just one illustration of how we need to update our theories of human nature to reflect the realities of what we now know from much experimentation and theorising in psychology.<\/p>\n
NPR Radio Broadcast, The Money Paradox, December 2014, 1 hour<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2014\/04\/04\/295349615\/are-we-wired-to-be-bad-with-money<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/p>\nDoing our best<\/h3>\n
To answer the question \u2018what makes for wellbeing and good mental health?\u2019 we might just as well ask \u2018What brings out the best in people?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
- Do our institutions as they currently operate bring out the best?<\/li>\n
- Do we as individuals bring out the best in each other?<\/li>\n
- Do we bring out the best in ourselves?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
My own observations, and those of many others who want to effect change, provide these answers:<\/p>\n
\n
- No, our institutions and social organisations do not always bring out the best.<\/li>\n
- Only occasionally do individuals bring out the best in each other, and<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Only you can answer whether you bring out the best in yourself, but you are not being helped much by our institutions or other people.<\/p>\n
However, this is no cause for despair.<\/strong>\u00a0 If we work a little harder perhaps we can find some better answers, and if we do, we can design better ways of working, better institutions, better laws and better individual strategies that enhance wellbeing.\u00a0 One key to this may be an improved understanding of how and why people behave towards each other as they do \u2013 digging deep into the psyche from multiple perspectives \u2013 psychology, economics, philosophy, politics as well as introspection and common sense.\u00a0 If we were to really understand people\u2019s needs and give them control to satisfy them, could we formulate a new approach to bringing out the best?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nImproving on History<\/h3>\n
Such questions have, of course, been a concern throughout history including all those in the professions mentioned above.\u00a0 So, what can yet another account bring to the show?\u00a0 My answer is that it is contemporary, informed, intelligible, integrated, detailed and to some extent open to being tested. It achieves this by providing links into current multi-media sources for the arguments, evidence and detail, and by gradually moving from a general, narrative, high level account into a more detailed, structured and potentially computational model.<\/p>\n
One thing is abundantly clear.\u00a0 We need innovation in our public institutions<\/strong>. Look at the degree of innovation in other aspects of our lives \u2013 in technology, in manufacture, and in science, but the way in which our public and commercial organisations view and treat individuals are as resistant to change as ever.<\/p>\n
Take just a few examples of technological breakthroughs:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.ted.com\/playlists\/2\/tech_breakthrough<\/a><\/p>\n
If we can design as well as this in the physical world then why are we still in the dark ages when it comes to the world of the mind and of society.<\/strong> \u00a0We seem to be strangely capable when it comes to the design of the physical world and strangely deficient when it comes to the design of our lives, the lives of others we influence and the ways in which our organisations and institutions impact on peoples\u2019 wellbeing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nIsn’t it obvious<\/h3>\n
Some reviewers of ‘Wellbeing and Control’ have said that all I am doing is stating the obvious. I have a defence against this. If it is so obvious then why do the structures in society that affect wellbeing do so little to deliberately enhance it \u2013 including, in some cases, the mental health services that you might have thought would have the inside track. Although some of it might be obvious to some people, I doubt that it is obvious to many, and even if it is, then only a few people do much about it in terms of changing anything.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nAchieving wellbeing<\/h3>\n
This is partly an appeal to do something about that – to become involved in a venture of working out answers to the important questions about wellbeing.\u00a0 Wellbeing is something that everybody knows about, at least from personal experience, and it is something we are all interested in whatever our state of mind.\u00a0 But just having an opinion is not enough.<\/p>\n
Although neither you, nor I, are the first people to think about this (perhaps it was some distant ancestor sitting on a rock in the sun outside his or her cave who first reflected on \u2018what makes me happy?\u2019, and then perhaps \u2018what makes her or him happy?\u2019), we do have the advantage of history.\u00a0 We stand on the shoulders of giants, and now much of the thinking of these giants is only a click away, re-packaged in easily digestible multi-media format on the internet. For example,\u00a0 a good account of the history of our attempts to understand happiness and wellbeing can be found in:<\/p>\n
Felicity Huppert, Nick Baylis and Barry Keverne, The Science of Wellbeing, Oxford University Press, 2005<\/em>
\nhttp:\/\/books.google.es\/books?hl=en&lr=&id=DDFqqeko9boC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=neuroscience+of+wellbeing&ots=VolVRuP2f6&sig=-Adv5AAXU_5JZZ2mfaTdyDw9DXA#v=onepage&q&f=false<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/p>\nIt’s not about self-help<\/h3>\n
In fact, so concerned are we with happiness that there is a large market in self-help and self-improvement books, \u00a350m per annum in the UK and amounting to about 10% of the entire book market. The main part of this is popular psychology \u2013 change on the inside, as opposed to, for example, dieting, appearance and body image.<\/p>\n
BBC Radio 4, The Bottom Line, Self-Improvement, First broadcast: Thursday 27 February 2014<\/em>
\nhttp:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b03w36r8<\/a><\/p>\nRecent criticism leveled at the \u2018self-help\u2019 industry points to the underlying assumption that improvement can be made by changing the self, whereas many of the problems of society are a function of circumstances that are beyond the control of the individual<\/strong>. Also, self-help tends to promote cultural norms rather than accepting and capitalising on variation. Listen, for example, to what sociologist Laurie Taylor has to say about the subject of self-help and self-improvement:<\/p>\n
BBC Radio 4, Thinking Allowed, Self-Help and Self-Improvement, January 2015, 29:01 minutes<\/em>
\nhttp:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b04vr5j0<\/a><\/p>\nAnd it is not as if mental health issues are not widespread.\u00a0 BBC Radio 4, The Life Scientific, Vikram Patel believes mental health conditions affect a billion people worldwide (more than 10%) and that for many conditions the causes (often poverty and circumstances) and remedies are much the same across cultures:<\/p>\n
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