Dr. Judith Joseph

So it's actually a word that if you ask any nurse, any healthcare professional, they know what it is.

It's such an antiquated old medical word.

I want to know, have you heard of it?

No.

Most people haven't, that's okay.

It was really coined by a French psychologist.

I think he may have been a psychiatrist in the 1800s.

And what he was saying was this lack of pleasure and interest in things, in people who had substance abuse, in people who had depression, in people who had schizophrenia.

And that's where you see a lot of anhedonia.

You even see it in people with dementia, right?

So older people who are going through that dementia phase and they just stop being enjoyed or excited about things, anhedonia is prominent there.

But people who have depression suffer from anhedonia.

People who have trauma suffer from anhedonia.

It's a numbing of the things that make life worth living.

But it's a sneaky symptom.

It's quiet.

People don't walk around quiet.

Saying, I have anhedonia.

They say, I feel meh or bleh, right?

And if you're not crying or not getting out of bed, no one's going to address it.