A Land of Lotus-Eaters?
GEORGE MORRISON CARSTAIRS M.D., F.R.C.P.E., D.P.M.1
1 Professor and chairman, department of psychiatry, University of Edinburgh, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Morningside Park, Edinburgh 10, Scotland
With the popularization of the psychotropic drugs, the author observes, a peculiar aberration has entered into public thinking: everyone nowadays expects to be happy. Pills have come to be regarded as a means to do away with the everyday anxieties and pain that have long served as spurs to human progress by leading to constructive action. This new view of unhappiness as a wholly negative and unnecessary emotion, the author suggests, is in need of reevaluation.
