I agree with Chaotic, absolutely we live in a different world and many of the supports (community, familiy, religion, tradition) have changed radically, leaving people - at least in the affluent western world - with fewer definites on which to base their lives. More choices, more expectations, more navel-gazing (or call it self-awareness) leads to more articulated dissatisfactions. Articulating things clearly, most people would agree, is a good thing. What is articulating to one, might be whining to another.

There have always been philosophers, writers, artists, religious people or shamans or wise men etc etc who have grappled with issues about what it means to be alive, happy, good, bad etc.

These are not new questions. We are just asking them in relation to more banal things, more ordinary things. Leaving aside mental illness, which we are now better able to diagnose and therefore help people to live happier lives as part of the human community, psychotherapy gives people a chance to pick apart some of the forces that drive them that they may not be fully aware of or in control of.

We don't have to go back far at all to the dark ages of 'getting on with things'. We all know people who are good at getting on with things, of picking themselves up and dusting themselves off and all that. Some of them may be genuinely resilient but I think far more of the rest are creating scar tissue, not healing properly and leaving weaknesses in their system that will eventually catch up with them.

Here's one analogy: training for a sport 20 years ago used very different techniques for strengthening based on what was known about the body at the time. What would today's athletes be like if what had been learned in the meantime was not applied?