"Proposals for massive expansion of psychological therapies would be counterproductive across society"

In the current issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, there's a lively debate article inspired by the initiative, inspired by Layard's work, to roll out CBT centres on a massive scale. Summerfield, who argues against this, basically firstly argues that our definitions of mental illness are not adequate to see these condtions as simply requiring a straightforward "intervention" - many are problems of living and "part of life." This of course is a very old argument within and without psychiatry.

Secondly he argues (without providing much, in fact anything, by way of evidence) that such an expansion of psychotherapies will inevitably lead to prolonged work absence, disability, and a huge social and individual cost in terms of loss of productivity, efficacy etc.

It's worth a look - David Veale defends CBT vigorously. The commentary by King is also good, and does make the point that, like many of these exercises, the debaters barely engage with each others real arguments...