Chronic fatigue syndrome is a disease that involves many body systems. Even so, cognitive-behavioral psychological therapy appears to be promising. Let’s discuss its benefits and limitations.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is a medical condition for which treatments of different kinds have been designed, some more successfully than others.
This time we are going to focus on the applicability of cognitive-behavioral therapy for this disease, as well as theadvantages it brings over the use of other different techniques. Likewise, we will review the possible inconveniences that you may also have.
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What is chronic fatigue syndrome?
Before entering into the study of cognitive-behavioral therapy in the face of chronic fatigue syndrome, it is necessary that we explore in depth the implications of this pathology. Chronic fatigue syndrome is a disease in which the subject who suffers from it experiences a constant feeling of tiredness, in addition to certain cognitive problems.
This medical condition is also called systemic disease of intolerance to exertion or myalgic encephalomyelitis. It is a chronic disease, which means that the person who suffers from it will suffer from it during a long stage of his life. The cause of this pathology is still unknown.
Later we will explore the scope of cognitive behavioral therapy in chronic fatigue syndrome. But first we must know many other symptoms that this ailment can generate. CFS canattack the immune, endocrine, cardiovascular or neurological systems, so it can cause problems in the patient at very different levels.
In addition to the fatigue that gives it its name, it is common to suffer from fevers or low-grade fever, have a special sensitivity to light, sounds and even temperature changes, or not rest well. Headaches and muscle aches are also frequent, so people who suffer from it describe the sensation as that of a constant flu.
They are not the only symptoms. You may experience sore throat, trouble concentrating, and even short-term memory impairment. CFS can also play havoc with spatial orientation. The person who suffers from it will not be able to carry out physical activity, and will also have difficulties managing stress .
This disease, a few years ago, was framed within those psychosomatic ailments. However, today it is known that its basis is not so psychological, but organic, although in any case in its intervention both medicine and psychotherapy must be counted on. In any case, there is still much to investigate about its causes.
Due to their characteristics, chronic fatigue syndrome is sometimes equated to other pathologies such as fibromyalgia, and they are included in a category called central sensitization syndromes. Regarding the prevalence data, CFS affects approximately 0.5% of the population, with an overwhelming difference between men and women, since male patients represent only 10%, with the remaining 90% being women.
This disorder can occur at the same time as other diseases, precisely fibromyalgia is one of them. But also with irritable bowel syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity, and others. Once we have a series of data that place us in the problem, we can move on to analyze cognitive-behavioral therapy in the face of chronic fatigue syndrome.
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Usefulness of cognitive-behavioral therapy in chronic fatigue syndrome
After exploring in depth the characteristics of chronic fatigue syndrome, we can now focus on the usefulness of cognitive behavioral therapy to try to get patients suffering from this pathology to experience an improvement, even to some degree.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is one of the most common ways of doing psychotherapy, as it refers to the techniques of one of the most weighty psychological currents today, cognitive and behaviorist. The basis of this type of therapy is, precisely, the action on the thoughts and behaviors of the patient.
Therefore, cognitive-behavioral therapy in the face of chronic fatigue syndrome is based on the performance of psychological work on the cognitions and behavior of patients suffering from this disease, with the aim of achieving relief in the perception of symptoms and therefore in their suffering.
It is important to be clear, as already mentioned above, thatchronic fatigue syndrome is not psychosomatic, but this does not mean that psychological work can not get the patient to suffer less, as with many other organic diseases.
In fact, cognitive-behavioral therapy is a type of treatment common in many pathologies that involve the suffering of chronic pain, because the psychological wear and tear that this fact causes in the person over time can result in an emotional overflow before the symptoms, an added stress and a feeling of not being able to cope with the situation.
If we work at the psychological level with all these variables, as proposed by cognitive-behavioral therapy in the face of chronic fatigue syndrome, it could bepossible to ensure that patients have a greater tolerance to the symptoms caused by this disease. This is, at least, the established premise for such therapy. To verify its effectiveness, we must focus on the research carried out for this purpose.
Studies of cognitive-behavioral therapy in chronic fatigue syndrome
In order to know if cognitive-behavioral therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome is really effective or, on the contrary, its effect does not make a difference in patients, it is necessaryto review some of the studies that have been carried out in this regard. That is what we are going to try to do at this point.
We will focus on the meta-analysis carried out by Price et al. in 2008. This work took into account 15 previously published studies, which added a total sample of 1043 people who had been treated by cognitive-behavioral therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome, compared to other techniques.
This large review of data allowed the authors to verify the premise from which they started, which was the improvement of patients thanks to cognitive behavioral psychological treatment. The data were conclusive. 40% of those treated with this therapy experienced improvement, while of those who received other treatments, only 26% felt better.
Another factor demonstrated by this meta-analysis is the importance of completing treatment. And, in those patients who had completed all cognitive-behavioral therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome, the effects of improvement were still observed even months after finishing it. But this benefit disappeared when the cases of people who stopped treatment early were reviewed.
As for the other psychological therapies that were used as opposed to cognitive-behavioral therapies, in the different studies of the meta-analysis there are some such as relaxation, educational therapies or orientation methods, among others. None of them proved to be as effective as the one in question.
Patients who completed the treatment cycle of cognitive-behavioral therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome showed a greater improvement around fatigue symptoms than those who were treated with other techniques or who did not finish the cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy program.
In addition, not only did they improve in terms of the physical perception of the symptoms, such as fatigue itself, but patients reported an improvement in terms of the symptoms of anxiety and depression, which many experienced as a result of suffering from this disease.
However, not all the conclusions of this extensive meta-analysis are so positive, as theauthors are aware of the limitations of this work. And, for example, they missed greater control of side effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy in the face of chronic fatigue syndrome in most studies, a variable that was not taken into account.
Likewise, the researchers found some limitations when comparing different studies, and that is that only two of those who formed the meta-analysis really compared the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy against other psychological techniques, while the rest of the studies limited themselves to exploring its effectiveness against a control group, without treatment.
The authors are clear in indicating that more research is needed in order to find out the true efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy in the face of chronic fatigue syndrome. Therefore, despite the hopeful data, we must take them with caution.
To the classic question “what do you do?” I always answer “basically I am a psychologist”. In fact, my academic training has revolved around the psychology of development, education and community, a field of study influenced my volunteer activities, as well as my first work experiences in personal services.
