Friedberg, Fred, Quick, Joyce · Psychosomatic medicine · 2007 · DOI
This study looked at whether difficulty identifying and expressing emotions (a trait called alexithymia) is linked to fatigue and pain in ME/CFS patients. Researchers asked 111 people with ME/CFS to report their symptoms three ways: in real-time through daily diaries, in weekly recall, and in overall retrospective ratings over 6 months. The results showed that day-to-day emotional difficulty was not connected to how patients experienced symptoms moment-to-moment, but there was a weak connection to how they remembered pain over longer periods.
Understanding whether emotional processing difficulties drive ME/CFS symptoms could inform psychological treatment approaches. By using multiple measurement methods including real-time symptom tracking, this study provides a more nuanced picture of how psychological factors relate to ME/CFS than prior retrospective-only research, helping clarify which symptom reports are most affected by emotional factors.
This study does not prove that alexithymia causes ME/CFS symptoms or that psychological interventions targeting emotional awareness will improve fatigue and pain in ME/CFS patients. The cross-sectional design cannot establish causality, and the modest associations found do not support alexithymia as a primary driver of somatic symptoms in this population.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Friedberg, Fred & Quick, Joyce (2007). Alexithymia in chronic fatigue syndrome: associations with momentary, recall, and retrospective measures of somatic complaints and emotions.. Psychosomatic medicine. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0b013e31802b873e
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-friedberg-2007-alexithymia-chronic,
author = {Friedberg, Fred and Quick, Joyce},
title = {Alexithymia in chronic fatigue syndrome: associations with momentary, recall, and retrospective measures of somatic complaints and emotions.},
journal = {Psychosomatic medicine},
year = {2007},
doi = {10.1097/PSY.0b013e31802b873e},
note = {PubMed: 17244849},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/friedberg-2007-alexithymia-chronic},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/friedberg-2007-alexithymia-chronic
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