Staggering naivety

After reading this, I blinked several times and double-checked that today isn't April 1st.

As someone with a fairly extensive involvement in the early days of the counselling movement, I can only despair that what we set out so hopefully to do in the 1970s and '80s has ended up in such a hideously banal fashion. Although the eager manner in which such a starry-eyed Panglossian prescription is being lapped up by a wilting government desperate to remedy the multiplying ills of the sad society it has mis-spent the past decade in creating comes as no surprise. The acid comment of a GP that to imagine a few weeks of CBT [Cognitive Behaviour Therapy] is going to transform miserable people languishing in idleness and dependency into happy shiny productive workers is "embarrassing in its absurdity" is putting it mildly. As for the notion that it's a simple matter to recruit and train the requisite army of therapists, capable of inducing happiness to order, I am - for once - speechless.

Given the choice between Lord Layard and Professor Brainstawm, I plump for the latter every time!