I don't want happiness to be part of the currency," he sighs, "but by that I don't mean that I want people to be miserable, but I do think that if you have a sense of reality you are going to be really troubled. Anybody in this culture who watches the news and can be happy – there's something wrong with them …"

But isn't eliminating the scourge of depression a good aim? "It's very simple. The reason that there are so many depressed people is that life is so depressing for many people. It's not a mystery. There is a presumption that there is a weakness in the people who are depressed or a weakness on the part of scientific research and one of these two groups has got to pull its socks up. Scientists have got to get better and find us a drug and the depressed have got to stop malingering. The ethos is: 'Actually life is wonderful, great – get out there!' That's totally unrealistic and it's bound to fail."

Adam Phillips, interviewed