Researchers at the University of Maryland investigated “the emotion paradox” in schizophrenia; the tendency of individuals with schizophrenia to report similar levels of positive emotion when reporting on current feelings, but lower levels when reporting on noncurrent feelings. Reviewing the empirical literature on anhedonia and emotional experience, they propose that anhedonia in schizophrenia should no longer be considered to represent a deficit or a diminished capacity for pleasure, but rather a set of beliefs related to pleasure that are reflected in response to questions about noncurrent feelings, and which are resistant to real-world experiences. Results will be in an upcoming American Journal of Psychiatry.
Not having access to the entire article, it’s difficult to tell, but from the abstract this does not sound plausible.
Is it another attempt to let the drugs off the hook for adverse psychiatric effects?
I can tell from personal experience with antidepressants — not antipsychotics, fortunately — they definitely do interfere with a full range of feeling. It’s not an attitude problem.
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