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Master Clinician Seminar

Mood Disorders and Suicidality

Master Clinician 2 - Positive Affect Treatment for Depression and Anxiety

Saturday, June 27, 2026
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT
Location: Yerba Buena Salon 15, B3 Level
Earn 2 Credit
Keywords: Depression, Treatment, Anxiety
Level of Familiarity: Basic to Moderate
Recommended Readings: Meuret, A. E., Dour, H., Loerinc Guinyard, A., & Craske, M. G. (2022). Positive Affect Treatment for depression and anxiety: Workbook. Oxford University Press.,   Craske, M. G., Meuret, A. E., Echiverri-Cohen, A., Rosenfield, D., & Ritz, T. (2023). Positive Affect Treatment targets reward sensitivity: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.,   Meuret, A. E., Rosenfield, D., Wang, E., Houg, C., Ritz, T., & Craske, M.G. (2026). Mechanisms of Positive and Negative Affect Treatment on Reward and Threat Processes in Depression and Anxiety. JAMA Network Open,   ,  
Individuals with emotional disorders such as depression and anxiety frequently experience diminished pleasure, interest, and joy in everyday activities. Low positive affect, a core feature of anhedonia, is associated with poor prognosis and elevated suicide risk. Despite its clinical importance, positive affect and anhedonia are rarely targeted directly in standard psychological or pharmacological treatments, leaving many patients with persistent symptoms.

Positive Affect Treatment (PAT) was developed to directly address reward processing deficits that contribute to anhedonia. PAT targets difficulties in anticipating rewards, engaging in motivated behavior, responding to positive outcomes, and learning from rewarding experiences. PAT is a structured 15 session intervention comprising 3 modules that focus on behavior (Actions Toward Feeling Better), cognition (Attending to the Positive), and compassion-based skill building (Building Positivity). Across modules, patients practice skills to increase their capacity to look forward to positive experiences, notice and remain engaged with them, and intentionally savor and learn from moments of pleasure, meaning, or accomplishment.

The clinical premise of PAT is that strengthening reward capacity increases the frequency and impact of positive experiences, which in turn reduces the dominance of negative thoughts, emotions, and stressors. Randomized controlled trials (Craske, Meuret, et al., 2019, 2023; Meuret et al., 2026) show that, compared to cognitive behavioral therapy, PAT leads to greater improvements in positive affect, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and suicidality among individuals with moderate to severe depression and anxiety and low positive affect.

This workshop will provide clinicians with a practical introduction to PAT by reviewing the clinical rationale and evidence base, demonstrating core modules and techniques, and teaching how to assess reward sensitivity deficits to guide selection and prioritization of PAT strategies in clinical practice.

Learning Objectives:

  • Recognize the symptoms of reward hyposensitivity
  • Plan behavioral and cognitive activities with patients to improve low positive affect
  • Identify improvements in reward deficit and how to augment benefits further
  • Identify what to do when clients struggle to engage in techniques
  • Explain guide selection and prioritization of PAT strategies in clinical practice.