A 45-year-old woman with low mood says she still goes out to dinner with friends every week because "it's just what we do," but when asked directly, admits the food tastes the same as always and the conversation doesn't lift her mood the way it used to — she just goes through the evening. Before revealing the answer: what is this finding, and why is it significant that she still attends despite this?
This is anhedonia. The fact that she still attends is exactly what makes it identifiable as anhedonia rather than apathy or simple loss of motivation: she retains enough motivation to show up and go through the activity, but the pleasure that would normally come from it has gone missing. If she'd simply stopped wanting to go at all, that would point more toward apathy.
References
- Casey, P. & Kelly, B. (2019). Fish's Clinical Psychopathology, 4th ed. Ch. 6, 'Disorders of Emotion'.