Anhedonia, which refers to decreased ability to experience pleasure in normally pleasurable things, is a core symptom of depression; in fact, you can get a diagnosis of major depressive disorder without depressed mood if you have anhedonia. Anhedonia is a part of the melancholic features specifier for depression, as opposed to atypical features, which involves …
Chances are the first thing that comes to most people’s minds when they think about depression is depressed mood, right? But while depressed mood is often a major part of depressive illnesses, sometimes it plays a minor role and other times it’s not present at all. Major depressive episode symptoms Major depressive episodes can occur …
Fluctuating motivation in mental illness means that sometimes, things are happening, while other times, the wheels just fall right off. Motivation follows activation? A basic element of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for depression is behavioural activation. The idea is that motivation follows activation, meaning if you force yourself to do stuff, you’ll start to feel …
There are many different ways to experience depression; people may have very different symptoms and still have the same depression diagnosis. When it comes to the impact of depression on emotions, psychopharmacology guru Dr. Stephen Stahl identified two categories of mood symptoms in his book Stahl’s Essential Psychopharmacology (affiliate link): decreased positive affect and increased …
Depression & Emotions: Positive & Negative Affect Read More »
A few months ago, I decided to go ahead and book an overseas vacation. I hoped that it would give me something to look forward to, and that it would help to finally put a dent in the anhedonia that’s been such a challenging symptom of my depression. I decided to go to Italy because …
There have been a lot of horrific events in the news lately. As I saw these events on the news, I knew cognitively how terrible they were, but on an emotional level, I just felt nothing. I am not a cruel, heartless sort of person, but I still felt nothing.
