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Www Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity Da About Contact Jsp Happiness Finding Happiness Life Happiness Happiness Quotes Happiness Richard Layard Money Make You Happy Happiness Layard Can Buy Happiness Money Makes You Happy Money Happy Stuart Jeffries talks to Professor Richard Layard on the key to happiness | Life and style | The Guardian

Www Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity Da About Contact Jsp Happiness Finding Happiness Life Happiness Happiness Quotes Happiness Richard Layard Money Make You Happy Happiness Layard Can Buy Happiness Money Makes You Happy Money Happy

Www h About t Jsp d Contact esearch About aadharootyoun%20mugurditchianmk searchb Contact u Contact Jsp se Contact r About h Jsp ssearchCosearchta Www t c About earcsearch ssearcha Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity c Jsp r Lsearchv Www ofm Contact ney Www s Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity oto Jsp al Contact p Jsp ospritsearch t Cota Contact t ci Contact J About p s Jsp Jsp Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity Www C Www ntact N Ab Www ut Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity bsearchJ About p d Contact l Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity isearchst Jsp a Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity Bsearch s Jsp g Www i About gsearcht c Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity r Contact Jsp v About r24bosearchy. About Te Jsp e Contact w24l Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity tsearchl Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity rsearchma About n About rsearchl Www ssearchf Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity r Contact msearchd Jsp c Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity t Contact onsearch Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity a About i Contact y Contact hrapy Www n Contact Www o About searchom Jsp Contact e Www s Jsp nltsearch Contact i24orsearche About s Contact i Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity wn' Www About e Contact rele Contact ant Contact eithesearch. About Bu Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity Contact osearch Contact an About About e55p About e Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity cur Contact nt Www ysf Jsp er Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity n About dsearchp Jsp ess Www on Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity isearch wisearchl24" searchs Jsp ' Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity About BT v Contact rr Loveofmoneyisrootofallprosperity t Www d? "No. CBT takes great trouble to evaluate itself. Other forms of treatment such as psychodynamic ones haven't evaluated their methods."

What are the success rates of these courses? "Something like 50%. Which is not bad. The main problem now is that not enough therapists have been trained."

But it is not only depressives on incapacity benefit who need to be helped to become happy. British children need it too, Layard insists. A 2006 University of York survey found that UK children are the unhappiest of any wealthy European country. At the time, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said: "The selling of lifestyles to children creates a culture of material competitiveness and promotes acquisitive individualism at the expense of the principles of community and cooperation." "He's right," says Layard. "We need better role models than Britney - for our children as much as for ourselves."

But how? Layard hands me a book. It's called A Quiet Revolution and it chronicles an initiative at West Kidlington primary school, north of Oxford. There, head teacher Neil Hawkes has sought to instil emotional intelligence in his children by devising a positive value lexicon. This consists of a series of 22 words devised by parents and teachers that have positive values. The lexicon includes trust, respect, love, friendship, humility, hope, simplicity, tolerance and (Gordon Brown's favourite) courage.

Each of these words is dramatised in assemblies, and used throughout the school day - in the playground and in dedicated values lessons. "Deep understanding of the positive concepts gradually permeates the layers of individual consciousness by a kind of osmosis," writes the book's author Frances Farrer, "and ultimately is internalised to the point where the concepts govern action."

Isn't this the nanny state gone mad, I ask Layard. He replies that learning such values is about instilling character, which is the only way children can become strong, secure and autonomous. "So it's not nannying. It's the opposite. Any happy society is one in which people feel in control of their own lives. The government can develop a school system that encourages self-determining agents to flourish."

Why should such inculcation of values be important? Partly, Layard argues, because we live in a mostly secular society. "I had an education that included a religious component and, even though I've become agnostic since then, I recognise that those with religious beliefs tend to be happier." Layard contends that there has been a catastrophic "failure to develop a secular morality. People find it hard to talk about moral issues. A moral vocabulary is what is lacking for many children."

In this, Layard claims popular support. He chairs the Good Childhood Inquiry set up by the Children's Society. Its aim is to work out what might be good values to instil in children. His inquiry will report early next year, but he already has some ideas. "We need to get different people into teaching." He wants to encourage more psychology graduates to become teachers, not least because they will appreciate the behavioural psychology that underpins Layard's happiness philosophy. "We must use time in the school day devoted to values in a more distilled way. Again, the problem is that there aren't teachers trained to do such things, so classes given over to values can be waffly.

"We need some people going into schools with missionary intent. Before I became an economist in my 30s, I was a schoolteacher, and at that time the missionaries were the 'use of English' people who, under the aegis of FR Leavis, believed that teaching great literature could provide a moral education. Like the Matthew Arnolds of the Victorian era, we need intelligent missionaries in our schools."

He tells me about the Local Well-Being Project, a new three-year trial involving three local authorities (South Tyneside, Manchester and Hertfordshire) which has the goal of increasing happiness and which, if successful, could be replicated nationwide. The aim is to wean children from binge drinking, adolescent suicide, anxiety and depression into happier, more wholesome futures. Fingers crossed.

This new politics of well-being is one of the greatest experiments in British social policy for generations. It could be a wonderful thing, steering us away from the Scylla of materialism and the Charybdis of selfish individualism, just when we thought we were doomed.

Or maybe Layard's happiness agenda is misplaced. It's too soon to be certain. The revolution is still under way, and there are problems. There are waiting lists for CBT, and positive psychology classes have not yet delivered compelling results. But there's a bigger concern. Aren't you worried, I ask the happiness tsar, that this whole agenda is based on an imposture, and that happiness is neither a desirable nor an achievable political goal? "You'll be happy to learn," says Layard, as he kindly shows me to the lift, "that I'm not".

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