Positive Affect Treatment For Depression And Anxiety: Therapist Guide

PAT employs a multi-faceted approach to systematically build “wanting,” “liking,” and “learning” capacities related to reward responsiveness. The treatment integrates strategies across three domains:

• Action towards feeling better: This foundational intervention encourages clients to plan and engage in positive activities that provide pleasure, accomplishment, or align with personal values. Activities are designed to enhance the anticipation (“wanting”) and enjoyment (“liking”) of rewards. Memory specificity training, or “Savoring the Moment,” deepens the hedonic impact of these experiences by guiding clients to visualize and recount positive events vividly, focusing on sensations, thoughts, and emotions (Barry et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2018).
• Attending to the positive: PAT introduces a distinct cognitive approach aimed at redirecting attention to positive experiences, fostering appreciation for past achievements, and imagining future rewards. Techniques such as “Finding the Silver Linings” help clients identify positive elements in everyday situations, while “Taking Ownership” and “Imagining the Positive” strengthen self-efficacy and anticipation of joy (Holmes et al., 2006; Pictet et al., 2011). These strategies enhance both “liking” and “learning” by reinforcing positive emotional associations.
• Building positivity: PAT includes experiential exercises such as loving-kindness meditation, gratitude practices, and acts of generosity to cultivate and sustain positive emotions (Fredrickson et al., 2008). These activities are designed to improve interpersonal connections, self-compassion, and mood while reinforcing the brain’s reward pathways (Hofmann et al., 2015; Snippe et al., 2018).