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A 1992 paper proposed classifying happiness as a psychiatric disorder

Ellsworth Toohey
Mar 17, 2026
∙ Paid

Black Salmon/shutterstock.com

In 1992, psychologist Richard P. Bentall of Liverpool University published a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics proposing that happiness be reclassified as a psychiatric disorder. He suggested the name “major affective disorder, pleasant type.”

His argument: happiness is statistically abnormal — most people, at any given …

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