What is anhedonia or lack of pleasure?

Anhedonia is defined as the inability to experience pleasure. It is a type of block that prevents the recognition of positive stimuli that create pleasure, which usually leads to a loss of interest in activities and habitual aspects of daily life.

At the physiological level it implies a disturbance of the brain's reward system, specifically in the limbic system. The main responsible would be the dopamine, a chemical substance in our nervous system related to pleasure.

Types of anhedonia

Some people do not feel pleasure for anything in life, while, in some cases, it is reduced to specific activities. They are called partial anhedonia that are associated with two aspects:

• Social: Inability to enjoy social contact with other people, leading to isolation.
• Physical: Inability to enjoy activities that involve activating physical stimuli, such as sexual intercourse, food, sports ...

It is also important to note that there are degrees ranging from total inability to feel to a more or less marked reduction in capacity. Activities that were once exciting can be enjoyed at a much lower level.

Anhedonia is a symptom of a major disorder

Anhedonia is not a psychiatric disorder, nor a disease, nor a syndrome, but it is a symptom, and is usually part of a larger picture. It can manifest itself in very varied problems:

• Depressive disorders: ,, dysthymia ... are the disorders in which anhedonia tends to appear most frequently and where it is a fundamental descriptive characteristic.
• Psychotic disorders as the .
• Substance addiction (alcohol, cocaine, cannabis, and other drugs)
• Anxiety disorders
• Stress
• Duel
• Some antidepressant and antipsychotic medications can cause anhedonia.

Differentiated treatment

In order to focus the treatment of anhedonia, it is essential to analyze which psychological picture does it belong to. Anhedonia produced by depression will not be addressed in the same way as that produced by schizophrenia. Each specific problem needs different psychotherapeutic strategies, even though the symptom of anhedonia is the same. Nor will it be treated the same if it is something isolated and specific or if it belongs to a broader disorder.

Pleasure is spontaneous and should not be forced

Search the context in which anhedonia appears is fundamental, since there are stages of life where it is normal not to feel pleasure or desire for anything, for example, when a loved one has died. In certain circumstances, it is good accept that we may be going through a phase of anhedonia consistent with what we are experiencing and what we cannot hope to change, it is in itself therapeutic.

This has to do with what in psychology is called "force the spontaneous”, Which is one of the first solutions that the person tries to resolve symptoms such as anhedonia. If something does not give me pleasure as before, I will try to "force" myself to give it to me. But nevertheless, experiencing pleasure is spontaneous and forcing it can lead us to feel failure if we do not achieve it; we have two problems instead of one.

In order to gain a sense of control, the most important thing is to activate yourself. Anhedonia thrives on the inactivity and abandonment and is closely related to the feeling of emptiness. Analyzing what is behind that feeling and what it is connected to can be decisive. Take care of pending issues, do not shut yourself in, let your ability to feel again ally with you as you resolve other issues that are not working in your life.

• It is a type of block that prevents the recognition of positive stimuli that create pleasure, which often leads to a loss of interest in activities and habitual aspects of daily life.
• Anhedonia is not a syndrome, a disease or a psychiatric disorder without a symptom, and as such it is usually part of a larger picture.
• Anhedonia is closely related to the feeling of emptiness. Analyzing what is behind that feeling and what it is connected to can be decisive.