Explaining Anhedonia

Psychoanalytic Perspective

Several theories try to explain anhedonia, including the so-called father of psychology, Sigmund Freud. Using his psychoanalytic theory, Freud tried to explain anhedonia in terms of id, ego, and superego. According to Freud, the id is part of the personality that holds what is inherited, present at birth, and remain in a person's psychological constitution (Fortinash & Holoday-Worret, 2000). It is part of the personality that is responsible for the experience of pleasure. It is believed that any deficit in the development of the id which can cause anhedonia deficit syndrome.

Although Freud did not make a compelling argument, other theorists have also formulated a number of explanations for the concept of anhedonia. Some have argued that anhedonia is a biological phenomenon. Others believe that anhedonia developed as a reaction to the illness of schizophrenia. Yet others argue that anhedonia results from an inability to adapt to the environment.
The view of social learningSocial learning theory believes that the behavior studied and modified incrementally as a result of repeated interactions with the environment (Fortinash & Holoday-Worret, 2000). Social learning begins at birth and continues throughout the entire life span. After the child is born, the parents are trying to help them learn the basic skills needed to function in society. As children grow, they learn through socialization. Socialize with parents, families, and friends all play an integral role in their development.

While interacting with parents, family, and friends, children learn through observation, imitation, and positive and negative reinforcement. Social learning can be seen when watching a group of children playing together. A child who does not know how to play a particular game will see and learn like other children playing games. As children learn the rules of the game, he will join and imitate the actions of others. Eventually, the child will learn what you should and should not do during a game with positive and negative reinforcement. 

When a child does something good, like scoring points for his team, his teammates will all clapped and cheered for him. When he inadvertently passed the ball to the opposing team members, fellow will respond negatively with frowns and cries of frustration (Bandura & Walters, 1963).

If social learning is complex for children "normal," healthy, imagine social learning difficulty for a person diagnosed with schizophrenia deficit syndrome. With the start of schizophrenia, normal development disturbed individual. There may be prior prodromal schizophrenia diagnosed behavior. Young people can be deprived of participation in new experiences and activities and new experiences can be lost due to poor coping skills. This deficiency leaves people without the means to develop the capacity for pleasure (Krupa & Thornton, 1986). This causes the individual negative symptoms anhedonia and reinforce the notion that anhedonia is a result of inadequate social learning.

Assessing the severity of anhedoniaThere are scales available for use by health care providers to assess the severity of anhedonia clients. The Physical anhedonia Scale (PAS) and social anhedonia scale (SAS) are just two of the scales available to measure symptoms of anhedonia. In a study conducted to examine the relationship between anhedonia and depression in schizophrenia deficit syndrome, subjects were tested using the PAS and SAS. Each subject filled a revised version of the PAS and SAS, both self-evaluation scales. "It's self-evaluation scale used to avoid the bias inherent to the ratings of both depression and negative symptoms by the same investigator. Also, the use of self-report instrument for the assessment of anhedonia almost mandatory, because it is inconceivable that a person's inner feelings of pleasure can be assessed by External assessors "(Loas, Boyer & Legrand, 1999, p. 209). One of the results of this study are consistent with the idea that anhedonia is a key feature in the definition of deficit schizophrenia patients.