Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Newton, Massachusetts.
J Clin Psychol. 2019 Jan;75(1):116-131. doi: 10.1002/jclp.22692. Epub 2018 Aug 28.
The process of somatization in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) was investigated using the concept of illusory mental health (IMH). IMH involves self-reporting low emotional distress alongside performance-based assessment of distress.
We studied IHM and physical symptoms in 175 women across four groups: (a) CFS plus depression; (b) CFS with no depression (CFS-ND); (c) depressive disorder without CFS; and (d) healthy controls (HC). IMH was assessed using a self-report measure plus the performance-based Early Memory Index (EMI).
CFS-NDs were no more likely to have IMH compared with HCs. Among the CFS-NDs, IMH was associated with more physical symptoms. For CFS-NDs, EMI added meaningfully beyond self-reported mental health in predicting physical symptoms.
Findings refute reducing CFS to somatization, but there is a subgroup of CFS whose lacking access to emotional distress is associated with heightened physical symptomatology.
本研究运用虚幻心理健康（IMH）的概念，探究慢性疲劳综合征（CFS）患者的躯体化过程。IMH 涉及自我报告的情绪困扰低水平，同时进行基于表现的困扰评估。
我们研究了四个组别的 IMH 和身体症状，共涉及 175 名女性：（a）CFS 合并抑郁；（b）CFS 无抑郁（CFS-ND）；（c）无 CFS 的抑郁障碍；和（d）健康对照（HC）。IMH 通过自我报告测量和基于表现的早期记忆指数（EMI）来评估。
与 HC 相比，CFS-ND 更不可能出现 IMH。在 CFS-ND 中，IMH 与更多的身体症状相关。对于 CFS-ND，EMI 在预测身体症状方面，除了自我报告的心理健康之外，还有重要的补充作用。
研究结果驳斥了将 CFS 简化为躯体化的观点，但存在一个 CFS 亚组，其无法感受到情绪困扰与更高的身体症状相关。
