Conditions

Avolition: How to Overcome the Feeling of No Desire to Do Anything

Learn about avolition, a feeling of severe lack of motivation linked to mental health issues like depression and schizophrenia, and explore its symptoms, causes, and effective strategies for diagnosis, management, and treatment.

Taylor Stranaghan By Taylor Stranaghan
Man lying on couch with a remote.

Updated on Jul 30, 2024

It’s normal for our levels of motivation to rise and fall.

Whether it has to do with completing our daily chores or hitting our targets at work, feeling uninspired or disinterested in getting things done is natural.

Avolition is a more pervasive version of this, usually tied to other mental health issues that can significantly impair your day-to-day life.

In this article, we will explore what avolition is, and how getting to the root cause of avolition is an essential step to learning how to address it and regain a sense of purpose and productivity in our lives.

Key Takeaways:

  • Avolition is an extreme lack of motivation or drive to engage in meaningful activities, often co-occurring with mental health disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.
  • Avolition symptoms include severe apathy, social withdrawal, and neglected self-care. Diagnosis involves psychiatric assessments like the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS).
  • Effective treatments include cognitive behavioral therapy to combat negative thought patterns, motivational interviewing to enhance intrinsic motivation, and practical strategies like goal-setting and routine-building to manage daily challenges

What is Avolition?

Avolition is a feeling of a severe, sometimes even debilitating, lack of motivation or drive to complete meaningful tasks. Most often, avolition does not exist on its own. It accompanies symptoms associated with depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental health disorders affecting the way we think, feel, and behave.

For example, with major depressive disorder, avolition can heighten our sense of apathy or disinterest in enjoyable activities. In both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, avolition is seen as the central symptomatic feature of negative symptoms.

Avolition and Anhedonia

When it comes to feeling low, disinterested, and unable to find joy in the world around us, there might be a few things at play here.

Another common symptom that is often associated with depression is anhedonia.

Anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure from activities that would otherwise be enjoyable.

Both avolition and anhedonia are commonly mixed up with apathy, which is described as the ‘umbrella term’ that encompasses a general lack of interest or enthusiasm.

Symptoms of Avolition

Compared to having a general lack of motivation from time to time, avolition manifests in more severe ways.

Signs and symptoms of avolition include:

While these are all common characteristics of someone with avolition, receiving an accurate diagnosis requires support from a qualified mental health provider.

Causes of Avolition

Similar to most other mental health conditions, the root cause of avolition is multifaceted. In other words, it is believed to result from a combination of factors including biological or genetic, psychological, and environmental.

Depression

In depression, avolition expresses itself as a more pronounced lack of motivation, desire, and interest in engaging in activities that had once been fulfilling or pleasurable.

Since many core symptoms of depression surround mood, energy levels, and striving towards a goal or purpose, avolition can exacerbate the impact of the disorder. Ultimately, this can lead someone into a cycle of heightened withdrawal or inactivity, further contributing to feeling hopeless, guilty, and generally dissatisfied.

Schizophrenia

Individuals who struggle with schizophrenia also experience pervasive disinterest in previously enjoyable activities. While other symptoms arise with this condition, such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thought patterns, and impaired social functioning, avolition is generally a part of the symptom cluster.

Motivational impairments in schizophrenia most often manifest as a combination of avolition, anhedonia, social withdrawal and emotional disorders.

Bipolar Disorder

With bipolar disorder, a mental health disorder characterized by persistent mood swings involving episodes of depression and mania, the low points can involve symptoms of avolition.

Individuals suffering from bipolar disorders dip into depressive states which involve persistent sadness, loss of interest in activities, sleep disturbances, fatigue, and feelings of worthlessness. Unlike depression, bipolar disorder also involves manic episodes, which are expressed through elevated moods, high-energy states, racing thoughts, and impulsivity.

Diagnosing the Cause of Avolition

If symptoms of avolition with underlying mental health challenges begin to affect your daily functioning, receiving a formal diagnosis is necessary.

Psychiatric tools used to assess and diagnose avolition include:

Healthcare providers or licensed mental health professionals can diagnose the underlying cause of avolition to help get you on the path to treatment.

Coping with and Treating Avolition

Accurately diagnosing avolition can provide valuable insights into the underlying causes and severity of symptoms, thereby informing the treatment process.

Although the ideal treatment option may vary from person to person, mental health experts recommend cognitive behavior therapy, motivational interviewing, mindfulness-based interventions, and in some cases medication management.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Among the many psychotherapy interventions available, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is one of the most common approaches for treating mood disturbances. CBT helps target negative symptoms associated with mental health disorders through cognitive restructuring and behavioral activation.

Cognitive Restructuring

This facet of CBT works to address and modify negative or intrusive thoughts that contribute to feelings of apathy, lack of motivation, and general disinterest. It helps individuals challenge their negative beliefs, replacing them with more adaptive and realistic thoughts.

Rather than telling ourselves “It is not worth trying” or “I am too tired to do anything”, cognitive restructuring replaces these thoughts with “I have the ability to make positive change in my life” or “Even small steps toward my goal is progress”.

Behavioral Activation

As a foundational component of CBT, behavioral activation focuses on using certain behaviors to help activate pleasant emotions. The idea behind this approach is to target depressive symptoms, such as avolition, by encouraging the engagement of rewarding activities.

When dealing with avolition, think of it like getting ready for a walk. The hardest part is putting on your shoes because it’s always the first step. While it may feel uncomfortable for the first minute, it’s a manageable discomfort...

- Nicole Ernst, LMHC

Oftentimes, the hardest part of the process is just getting started.

According to Nicole Ernst, licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) at Grow Therapy, “When dealing with avolition, think of it like getting ready for a walk. The hardest part is putting on your shoes because it’s always the first step. While it may feel uncomfortable for the first minute, it’s a manageable discomfort. Once you’ve got your shoes on, your chances of success, whether it’s going for that walk or completely any other task, is much higher.”

Behavioral activation helps us overcome the barrier of getting started, helping us engage in activities that lead to improved mood and increased momentum to keep moving forward.

Motivational Interviewing

Motivational interviewing (MI) is another therapeutic modality used to help address the underlying lack of motivation that accompanies avolition.

According to a 2023 study, MI is based on the idea that change is more of a process rather than a standalone event. In other words, changing behavior must unfold gradually, with individuals moving through stages of readiness and resistance. Most importantly, change can not be forced.

MI facilitates and supports this process by guiding individuals towards increasing their intrinsic motivation for change by exploring the tendencies for avolition, promoting empowerment, and utilizing techniques to strengthen motivation for change.

Mindfulness-Based Therapy

Mindfulness-based therapies have become a popular intervention for targeting symptoms of depression and improving levels of motivation.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) encourages individuals to become more aware of their internal events, such as their thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations to change the way they interact with them. MBCT can help individuals detach themselves from negative thoughts, such as “I am too lazy or too stressed to get started” to make room for healthier thought patterns such as “I recognize I am tired or stressed, but I am capable of taking small steps towards this goal.”

Medication Management

Depending on the root cause of avolition, medications are a common method for symptom management.

Seek guidance from your doctor to find out if medication may be right for you.

Strategies to Help Manage Avolition

There are a ton of helpful and practical management strategies available that can help individuals overcome avolition. Given that each person approaches challenges differently, it’s essential to explore a variety of techniques to find what works best for you.

Beneficial ways to combat avolition:

Incorporating new strategies while also remaining open and receptive to new approaches is a great way to address avolition, foster a sense of empowerment, and increase your motivation and productivity.

How Do Lifestyle Changes and Self-Care Contribute to Recovery?

The choices we make in our daily lives, from how long or how little we sleep to how hydrated we are, can impact our mental health.

There are plenty of tiny habits that can be transformative for our mood, energy levels, and sense of purpose in life. For example, prioritizing well-balanced meals throughout the day filled with lean protein sources, whole grains, and colorful fruit and vegetables, along with a variety of micronutrients, such as zinc, magnesium, and vitamin B can support our overall health and well-being.

Getting consistent sleep, physical activity, and social interactions are all self-care practices that help replenish our emotional reserves, relieve our stress, and treat numerous underlying symptoms associated with depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and more.

Where to Find Support and Resources for Avolition?

Community is an essential aspect of managing our mental health. Seeking social support, whether through face-to-face conversations with a trusted friend or participating in local support group meetings, as well as connecting with virtual communities or engaging in online therapy, can offer a profound sense of belonging, compassion, and understanding amidst our challenges.

Engaging with others who share similar experiences as us can make these difficult times feel less isolating. In many cases, it can serve as an excellent resource to propel us into action, instill motivation, and build momentum in these positive experiences.

Getting the help you deserve is a priority. Here’s how to get the mental health support you need.

Long-Term Strategies and Preventative Measures

The most effective long-term strategies and preventative measures for managing avolition require more of a comprehensive approach. It involves not only recognizing the signs of potential relapse but also proactively maintaining progress through consistent self-awareness and self-reflection.

For those who have been affected by avolition, it’s necessary to find a licensed therapist who can provide support and guidance in overcoming symptoms, ultimately aiding in your journey toward realizing your fullest potential.

FAQs

  • Avolition refers to a loss of motivation or low desire to complete tasks and is often associated with mental health conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.

  • An example of avolition would be someone who wants to start a new sport, activity, or hobby but struggles to take the first steps to get involved. Despite having the resources and interest, their low levels of motivation supersedes all else.

  • Individuals who struggle with avolition are likely to lack motivation to engage in formally enjoyable activities, experience a sense of apathy or indifference towards achieving goals, and may also have received a mental health diagnosis of depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder.

  • Avolition is commonly diagnosed through a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation involving symptom assessments and medical history conducted by a mental health professional.

  • Treatment for avolition involves a combination of therapy, lifestyle adjustments, and self-care practices. Though every case is different, some individuals benefit from medication as well.

  • ADHD avolition refers to a symptom involving difficulty starting or maintaining a task. This sometimes manifests as procrastination.

About the author
Taylor Stranaghan Taylor Stranaghan

Taylor is a spirited writer, dedicated to exploring various layers of mental wellness, mindfulness, and personal growth. With a background in clinical research and pursuit of a Master’s in Counselling Psychology, she is passionate about crafting engaging content to empower and uplift individuals navigating their unique mental health journeys.

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