Loades, M E, Chalder, T · Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy · 2017 · DOI
Many young people with ME/CFS also experience depression, and both conditions can be treated with a talking therapy called cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This paper compares how CBT is used for these two conditions in children and teenagers, explaining that while the approaches share some similarities, they focus on different problems and use different strategies to help each condition.
Understanding how to effectively tailor CBT for children with ME/CFS who also have depression is clinically important, as this comorbidity is common and affects treatment planning. This work helps clinicians recognize that simply applying depression-focused CBT may not adequately address the specific mechanisms maintaining ME/CFS, potentially improving treatment outcomes.
This discussion paper does not provide empirical evidence comparing treatment efficacy between CBT approaches for CFS/ME versus depression; it is a literature review and theoretical analysis rather than a clinical trial. It does not demonstrate that one approach is superior to the other, nor does it prove that a formulation-driven approach definitively improves patient outcomes.
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 →
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Primary citation
Loades, M E & Chalder, T (2017). Same, Same But Different? Cognitive Behavioural Treatment Approaches for Paediatric CFS/ME and Depression.. Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352465817000108
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-loades-2017-same-same,
author = {Loades, M E and Chalder, T},
title = {Same, Same But Different? Cognitive Behavioural Treatment Approaches for Paediatric CFS/ME and Depression.},
journal = {Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy},
year = {2017},
doi = {10.1017/S1352465817000108},
note = {PubMed: 28274290},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/loades-2017-same-same},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/loades-2017-same-same
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