I have recently finished re-reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Many of you will be familiar with it. For those who have never read it, it is set at some undetermined point in the future, where universal happiness is a shared, societal imperative. People are conditioned to believe that anything less than happiness is failure, and not in the interests of the common good. The threat of contradictory emotion, such as malaise or anger, can be quickly assuaged through the use of ‘soma’, a drug that promotes joy and diminishes the challenging effects of reality.

Some might argue that like all good science fiction (if Brave New World falls into that genre), Huxley saw a little of the future. It seems that in the current pursuit of happiness, malaise and anger for example are too easily pathologised, and anything less than joy and contentment is experienced as intolerable. We have the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, where all people with anxiety or depression can receive free psychological therapy, of some form. Isn’t that a marvellous thing? Isn’t it.

It is surely a laudable service, and the millions that are currently being invested in training mental health professionals to deliver therapy (mostly CBT, although on paper there is a commitment to other NICE approved, evidence-based therapies), must be applauded. Never has psychological therapy received such investment, or affirmation.

Let’s dwell on the NICE approved therapies a little. The revised guideline for depression in adults is currently available for consultation. CBT remains the thing, but there is a new twist. If patients/clients (with persistent mild or moderate depression) should decline CBT or a low intensity intervention (which is a bit like ‘Therapy-Lite’: tastes like therapy, but without the heart-racing, blood-thickening, saturated experience of an actual relationship; delivered via computer-based programmes, or bibliotherapy – self-help books to you and me – for example), they may be offered counselling.

Ah, counselling – it gets a mention. However, the guideline goes on to say that ‘practitioners should take care to explain the uncertainty about the effectiveness of counselling for people with depression’. I always find that a reassuring opener when meeting a client who is struggling with depression: ‘I must point out before we start that this possibly won’t help at all, but we will have a nice chat. Of course, it also keeps me in a job, but if I did lose it I might be able to access the new psychological therapies for the credit crunch…’

If you missed that one, the Observer announced that ‘Victims of the recession [are] to get free therapy’ (Sunday 8 March 2009). The ‘victims’ will be able to receive ‘cognitive behavioural therapy, a method by which people are encouraged to look more at potential solutions than the causes of their difficulties’.

I would really like to state something clearly here though. Depression and anxiety can be truly awful experiences, and anything that can help must be a good thing. Why then do I remain a little sceptical? In Brave New World, Mustapha Mond, the World Controller, says, ‘Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery… And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.’ The Savage (his name derived from his not having been conditioned into this brave, new world) states later, ‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.’

I woke from a terrible dream recently. I was paying for my groceries at the local supermarket. Instead of being asked whether I needed help packing, I was asked whether I required a short-term intervention to help me cope with my traumatic response to the ever growing cost of my food. Watch this space: psychological therapies embedded within supermarkets, located somewhere between the ratatouille and the dog’s dinner – every little helps.

Andrew Reeves is a counsellor at the University of Liverpool Counselling Service and editor of Counselling and Psychotherapy Research (CPR)