Can a computer programme cure depression?

A computer based cognitive-behavioural therapy programme is being trialled in the north of England for the treatment of depression. If the results are positive, then this could be a major breakthrough in getting people off drugs. With drugs, even if they cure or minimise the symptoms, they have other undesirable side-effects.

It will be interesting to see the results of the trial. In my opinion, anything that interests and occupies the mind can have a therapeutic effect for treating mild depression. I often feel symptoms that can certainly be described as mild depression. Yet I feel a lot better after an interesting read or by listening to music or even aimlessly surfing the net. We need to unburden ourselves by doing things that make us feel relaxed, that we can do for their own sake rather than as instruments for achieving other ends.

That’s partly why I am sceptical about the computer programme. It requires discipline, sitting behind a computer and rigidly- and nervously- following the instructions. It requires focusing on the problems. In my opinion, diversionary tactics work the best.

Good arranged marriage

Every so often, I like to return to the knotty subject of arranged marriage, triggered in most cases by experiences and examples of how it should not work. For arranged marriage is a complicated thing. In theory, it is a good thing- or at least no worse than any other way of finding a life partner. In practice, it very often means arranged in every sense, so that the marrying parties have no say at all. It is simply assumed that they are happy. The question of how they feel simply does not arise. That surely cannot be right. Yet this is how it was done in the past and continues to be done in many cases at present.

So what is ‘good’ arranged marriage, or will we be like the socialists who continued to insist that socialism was a good thing, but that the counter examples given by critics were not cases of ‘real’ socialism? I think it need not be like that. So I propose the following definition of good arranged marriage. I would welcome alternatives or comments:

Arranged marriage is when parents introduce a child, who has explicitly stated their readiness for marriage, to a potential marriage partner and if marriage follows from the introduction, it does so as a result of the explicit consent of both parties. Nothing is implicit.