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Difficulty experiencing pleasure is a driving force behind soaring rates of anxiety and depression.

Positive affect treatment specifically addresses how to reboot our pleasure systems.

Positive affect can be cultivated, even when it feels impossibly far away.

If you've been following this blog, you know I've been struggling with anxiety and depression—and working hard to reclaim my capacity for pleasure. I've written candidly about that journey: sharing a model of how the three-level brain/mind works so we can learn to work it better, and offering practical tools to help reverse the anhedonia that’s at the heart of this suffering.

Difficulty experiencing pleasure isn't just a personal problem: It's a driving force behind soaring rates of anxiety and depression, and behind what researchers are calling the sexual recession—the well-documented trend of people having significantly less sex than previous generations.

Good news about a revolutionary new treatment for reclaiming our capacity for pleasure

I have recently learned about a newly developed therapy for anxiety, depression, and trauma, which specifically addresses how to reboot our pleasure systems, positive affect treatment. In this post, I will introduce this evidence-based approach, shown to be more effective than traditional therapies, and share how you can begin using its core practices. Note: This is not a replacement for professional help, but a validated toolkit for rebuilding your capacity for joy.

The problem isn't just stress—it's a pleasure shutdown

My book, Why Good Sex Matters, grew out of years of witnessing scores of clients lose the capacity for satisfying pleasures—in and out of the bedroom. This “pleasure crisis” is driven by the relentless demands of the attention economy—the pings, the scroll, the low-grade overstimulation that never really stops—and is quietly eroding our capacity for embodied, felt pleasure.

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