The new book by Richard Layard and co-author David Clark arrived in the post yesterday, [amazon_link id=”1846146054″ target=”_blank” ]Thrive: The Power of Evidence Based Psychological Therapies[/amazon_link]. It continues Professor Layard’s campaign for greater provision of mental health treatment – David Clark is a Professor of Psychology. The first half of the book covers the human and economic cost of mental illness, the second half is about which therapies are effective. I think I’m persuaded without reading it, but will do so to see whether it addresses the question of why governments so often treat mental health services as a low priority and what might change that.

A confession, though: the dog caught this one coming through the letter box and it has teeth marks right through it. I expect there was a lot of barking too – my apologies to the postman.

The dog ate my homework