The lessons in happiness that are making pupils miserable

Instead of deepening their knowledge, pupils and students are being given 'circle-time' and lessons in happiness, warn academics.

The 'therapy culture' spreading through schools and universities means they are also encouraged to seek marking allowances and extra help for conditions such as reading difficulties dressed up as dyslexia.

Circle time: Year 10 pupils (age 14-15) at an east London school where they teach philosophy to their students

In a new book, two academics say the craze for giving pupils therapy through education is leaving a generation self-obsessed, introverted and unable to take criticism.

Pupils are left 'infantilised', 'hapless' and unwilling to accept challenges to their ideas, according to Dr Dennis Hayes and Professor Kathryn Ecclestone of Oxford Brookes University.

Their stinging criticism in a book titled The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education follows the introduction of lessons in 'social and emotional aspects of learning' in primary and secondary schools.

Ministers back the classes in the hope they will improve well-being and cut bullying and bad behaviour.

Teachers are meant to set aside classroom time for children to explore their feelings and develop self-awareness and empathy.

Primary schools are increasingly introducing 'circle time' which is described on the Government's teachers' website as individuals ' sitting down together with the purpose of furthering understanding of themselves and of one another'.

But the academics claim the initiatives risk backfiring.

Dr Hayes told the Times Higher Education journal: 'Therapeutic education promotes the idea that we are emotional, vulnerable and hapless individuals. It is an attack on human potential.'

Expressions of emotion are too often valued as highly as expressions of ideas, he warned.

In one case highlighted in the book, a child was found to be crying at night and when asked what was troubling her, replied that she wasn't sure but had to put something in the school's 'worry box' the next day.

Growing numbers of schools are said to be hiring 'life coaches' and one unnamed college in the Midlands instructed teachers not to write comments on students' work in case it makes them feel vulnerable.

Secondary students are expected to learn more than 100 'feeling' word definitions ranging from abandoned and frightened to proud and loved.

At university, 'the infantilisation of students reveals itself in the increased presence of parents on campus', said Dr Hayes.

Dr Hayes went on: 'This is happening across the board. Children are told to build their self-esteem and confidence before learning, instead of learning from the outer world and gaining confidence that way.

'Children are becoming neurotic and introverted. The more you obsess about your difficulties, the harder they are to put behind you.'