If you suffer from CFS, then CBT treatment can help you in four ways.

Depression, anxiety and confusion

When you have CFS, you often have depression, anxiety or confusion. CBT treatment can help you to cope with these symptoms directly, even though it does not cure your CFS. This is important because CBT is an effective long-term treatment for these symptoms.

You might be able to use CBT treatment to avoid having to take drugs to treat these aspects of your condition, or to reduce the dose of the drugs that you take.

Coming to terms with CFS

CBT treatment can help you to come to terms with your condition, to be more in control of your treatment, and to be more involved in managing your symptoms. This is important because CFS is a complicated condition that affects different people in different ways.

There are no standard treatments that are equally helpful to all CFS sufferers. So when you are involved in managing your own symptoms, you can tailor your treatment according to how CFS affects you most. In this way you can get the best value out of the treatments available to you.

Other psychological conditions

If other psychological conditions affect your life, then CBT treatment can address them at the same time as the main symptoms of your CFS. This can be important if you have always had some psychological symptoms that were so minor they were not worth treating.

When you have CFS, every little problem that you can overcome is a step forward. CBT can deal with minor psychological issues quickly, effectively and permanently.

Long-term strategies

CBT treatment gives you long-term strategies for improving the quality of your life. This is important because CFS is a long-term condition that will only improve slowly. The long-term strategies that you learn through CBT are an appropriate way to manage your long-term psychological symptoms.