Anhedonia

Anhedonia (from Greek ἀν - on, " not " ἡδονή Hedone, "Lust" ) generally means the inability to feel joy and pleasure, and is the hedonism compared. Hedonism is in ancient Greece founded by Aristippus of Cyrene philosophical doctrine. It was further developed by Epicurus, after the quest is all human action determined or determine crucial for pleasure.

Psychology and psychopathology designate by the term a symptom of various mental diseases and disorders.

• In depression, anhedonia as a reduction in the number of positive reactions and the quality of joyful reactions is a central feature.
• When survivors syndrome is referred to the enduring inability to enjoy distractions.

Anhedonia, as a lack of pleasure in situations that are normally pleasurable, may occur in schizophrenia as a base disorder. In simplified form, it is associated with the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and schizoid personality.

Furthermore, anhedonia can be observed in psychotic disorders, addictions, Psychosomatoses, partly in the attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. You can also occur in people who have operated over a longer period stimulant abuse.

The anhedonia has a relationship to alexithymia, this is weaker or stronger depending on the noise image.

History

The term was introduced into psychology in the 19th century by the French psychologist Ribot Théodule. Lead both Sándor Radó and Paul E. Meehl anhedonia on genetically determined neural defects back in the 60s. Loren J. Chapman and Michael Mishlove distinguished for the first time in physical and social anhedonia:

• Physical Anhedonia is the inability to experience non-social events relish or process -body experiences as pleasant.
• Social anhedonia is characterized by decreased social activity and social withdrawal.

First evidence of an association of anhedonia and alexithymia, as to the inability to adequately perceive and describe feelings, Robert H. Dworkin was. He saw in 1984 at both the social anhedonia and alexithymia as the consequences of introverted and depressive traits. Jonathan D. Prince and Berenbaum Howard refuted 1993, the mediating role of depression that Dworkin had suspected. They were able to show that social anhedonia is also independent of depression and negative affect associated with alexithymia. A connection between physical anhedonia and alexithymia could not find Gwenole Loas (1997). The relationship of anhedonia and its sub-forms to alexithymia and the interaction with various diseases have not been systematically studied to date (as of 2010 ).

The special importance of anhedonia in all depressive disorders could Burkhard Pflug turn out in 1990. In current clinical psychiatry anhedonia is primarily understood as a complex of symptoms of depressive disorders. In schizophrenia, the concept of negative symptoms is assigned. In the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM -IV), the feature of anhedonia of the schizoid personality is ascribed.