A DIRECT APPROACH to the problem of the separation of elastic strain energy in the case of generally anisotropic materials is described in the present work. It is based on a simple analysis of the strain tensor into a spherical and a deviatoric one. A definition of dilatational and distortional elastic strain densities is introduced, based on the consideration of the geometrical response of a material. Through the generalized Hooke's law, analytic expressions are obtained for the generally anisotropic materials. The present results coincide with the only available in the literature data for anisotropic materials with cubic symmetry. In addition, an application for transversally isotropic materials is presented.