Anhedonia, a lack of conscious pleasure, is presented as a clinical entity. This state is traced to its antecedents—a series of defensive reactions following very early and fairly specific traumata. The patients studied had schizoid characters. Attempts to establish object relationships result in a more or less stable state of anhedonia with periodic crises which threaten or terminate it. An economic and structural hypothesis, corresponding to the phenomenology, is presented. The genetic sequence is: pathogenic stimuli—oral-narcissistic fixation (first defense)—distance mechanism (secondary defense stabilizing the fixation)—anhedonia.