Chronic fatigue syndrome: Psychological characteristics and cognitive-behavioral therapy

Abstract

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a new clinically defined condition characterized by severe disabling fatigue and a combination of physical and psychological symptoms. The CFS emerged as a diagnostic category during the late 1980s, is a poorly understood disorder, and has received scant consideration in the psychological scientific literature. The purpose of this article was to examine several conceptual and applied issues of the CFS from a psychopathological and clinical perspective. The paper underscores the current state of diagnosis, and describes son psychological mechanisms and cognitive-behavioral interventions for CFS.