I Used to Think Depression Was About Sadness. This Study Changed My Mind
For most of my life I thought of depression as a presence — sadness that needed to be lifted. A 2026 study in JAMA Network Open by researchers at SMU and UCLA suggests the opposite framing may be closer to the truth. Anhedonia, the loss of pleasure, may be the more disabling feature, and treating it directly may matter more than treating sadness alone.
In this article
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I Used to Think Depression Was About SadnessI have been thinking about this study for two days now. What stays with me is not the data — though the data is striking — but the implication. For most of my l - 2
What the SMU and UCLA Researchers Actually DidI want to walk through this carefully because the design matters. The study, published in JAMA Network Open in 2026, was a randomized clinical trial with 98 adu - 3
The Distinction That Stays With Me: Helpless vs HopelessThe Distinction That Stays With Me: Helpless vs Hopeless In the press coverage of the study, Alicia Meuret offered a sentence that I have not been able to se - 4
What This Means for the Way I JournalI want to be careful here. The study I have been describing is a clinical trial of a structured psychotherapy. It is not a journaling study. PAT is delivered by
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