Not at the Mercy of Our Moods

Notions of the tormented artist and of us being ruled by our moods are unhelpful and outdated today, especially in the field of mental health, says Tom Wootton. The implication is that mood is stronger than a person’s ability to handle it. But this is counter productive and should be relegated to history, he says. “We are learning to separate thought from action and stimulus from response…This makes it less likely, less acceptable, and less necessary that any of us be at ‘the mercy of our moods’…we should not be held back by a 19th century view of ourselves.”