Maroti, Daniel, Molander, Peter, Bileviciute-Ljungar, Indre · Scandinavian journal of psychology · 2017 · DOI
This study looked at how people with Exhaustion Syndrome and ME/CFS differ in how they experience and identify their emotions. Researchers tested 31 people with Exhaustion Syndrome, 38 with ME/CFS, and 30 healthy people using emotion-recognition tests and questionnaires about emotional awareness. The results showed that both groups had some difficulty with emotions, but in slightly different ways—people with ME/CFS had more trouble actually identifying what they were feeling in a performance test, while people with Exhaustion Syndrome mainly reported difficulty on a self-assessment questionnaire.
Distinguishing between Exhaustion Syndrome and ME/CFS is clinically challenging due to symptom overlap; identifying emotional processing differences could help clinicians differentiate these conditions and tailor treatment approaches. The finding that ME/CFS involves actual measurable difficulties in emotional awareness (not just self-perception) suggests emotional processing dysfunction may be a biological feature worth investigating further. Understanding these emotional differences can guide both clinical assessment and psychotherapeutic interventions.
This study does not prove that emotional difficulties cause ME/CFS or Exhaustion Syndrome—only that these conditions differ in how emotional processing is affected. The cross-sectional design cannot establish temporal relationships or determine whether emotional changes develop before or after symptom onset. Correlation between depression/anxiety and alexithymia does not establish whether mood disorders drive emotional awareness problems or vice versa.
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
Maroti, Daniel, Molander, Peter, & Bileviciute-Ljungar, Indre (2017). Differences in alexithymia and emotional awareness in exhaustion syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome.. Scandinavian journal of psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12332
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-maroti-2017-differences-alexithymia,
author = {Maroti, Daniel and Molander, Peter and Bileviciute-Ljungar, Indre},
title = {Differences in alexithymia and emotional awareness in exhaustion syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome.},
journal = {Scandinavian journal of psychology},
year = {2017},
doi = {10.1111/sjop.12332},
note = {PubMed: 27686801},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/maroti-2017-differences-alexithymia},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/maroti-2017-differences-alexithymia
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