What This Means for the Way I Journal

I 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 trained therapists across 15 sessions, with assessments and protocols I cannot reproduce on my own. Nothing in this article is a substitute for professional care, and the research itself is explicit that mediation analyses do not establish causality (Meuret et al., 2026).

What I am doing instead is noticing how closely the building blocks of PAT resemble practices I already do — and could do more deliberately — when I sit down to write.

Savoring as a writing practice

The PAT protocol uses something the researchers call savoring: vivid, present-focused mental rehearsal of a positive experience (Craske et al., 2023). I notice that this is something I do, sometimes, when I write about a good day. Not always. Often I write about what went wrong, what I am worried about, what I am trying to figure out. Those entries have their place. But the research suggests that the work of returning, in writing, to a moment that felt good — and lingering there long enough to actually re-experience it — may be doing something distinct from venting or problem-solving.

There is supporting evidence in the broader literature. A 2024 randomized trial by Kumar and colleagues, using brief behavioral activation plus savoring with university students, found measurable improvements in positive affect dysregulation (Kumar et al., 2024). A 2023 trial by LaFreniere and Newman showed that savoring positive emotions reduced contrast avoidance in generalized anxiety disorder (LaFreniere & Newman, 2023). These are not the same as the PAT trial, but they point in the same direction. Writing about positive experience, with attention, appears to do real work.

Gratitude as a deliberate redirection

PAT includes structured practices around gratitude and self-attribution for positive outcomes (Craske et al., 2019). I notice that gratitude journaling, as it is commonly recommended, can become rote — three things you are thankful for, written quickly before bed, without much inhabitation. The research seems to suggest that the value is not in the listing but in the dwelling. The redirection of attention toward what is good, sustained long enough that the brain registers the redirection.

This is one of the questions I find myself sitting with. When I journal, am I redirecting attention toward what feels good, or am I mostly auditing what feels bad? The two are not opposites. Both have value. But if the new research is right, the first kind of writing may be carrying weight I had not given it credit for.

Loving-kindness and the care for others

PAT also incorporates practices that cultivate positive emotions through care directed at others — loving-kindness, generosity, the deliberate noticing of moments of connection. Writing toward another person in this register, rather than only writing about myself, may be a practice worth more frequent attention.

What I am taking from this

I am not changing my whole practice based on a single study. The research is preliminary in some respects, and the authors are careful about what their findings can and cannot establish. Mechanistic conclusions about reward and threat processing should be interpreted cautiously, since the behavioral and physiological mediators did not reach significance — only the self-reported ones did (Meuret et al., 2026). The picture is incomplete.

But I am taking something. The next time I sit down to write, I want to ask a different question than the one I usually ask. Not only what am I struggling with right now, but also what felt genuinely good today, and can I stay with it long enough to feel it again. If the research is gesturing in the right direction, that second question may be doing more than I have been giving it credit for.

If you are reading this and any of it resonates, please remember that this is not therapeutic guidance. It is a reflection on research, written from outside the clinic looking in. If anhedonia is something you recognize in yourself, especially if it is severe or persistent, the people qualified to help with it are mental health professionals. The study referenced here is one of many; a recent review by Craske and colleagues offers a much fuller picture of where this field is moving (Craske et al., 2024).

References

Craske, M. G., Meuret, A. E., Ritz, T., Treanor, M., Dour, H., & Rosenfield, D. (2019). Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 87(5), 457-471.

Craske, M. G., Meuret, A. E., Echiverri-Cohen, A., Rosenfield, D., & Ritz, T. (2023). Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 91(6), 350-366.

Craske, M. G., Dunn, B. D., Meuret, A. E., Rizvi, S. J., & Taylor, C. T. (2024). Nature Reviews Psychology, 3, 665-685.

Kumar, D., Corner, S., Kim, R., & Meuret, A. (2024). Behaviour Research and Therapy, 177, 104525.

LaFreniere, L. S., & Newman, M. G. (2023). Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 93, 102659.

Meuret, A. E., Ritz, T., Craske, M. G., et al. (2026). JAMA Network Open.