The CDC states that speaking with a therapist may help people cope with the illness.A 2015 National Institutes of Health report concluded that while counseling and behavior therapies could produce benefits for some people, they may not yield improvement in quality of life, and because of this limitation such therapies should not be considered as a primary treatment, but rather should be used only as one component of a broader approach. This same report stated that although counseling approaches have shown benefit in some measures of fatigue, function and overall improvement, these approaches have been inadequately studied in subgroups of the wider CFS patient population. Further concern was expressed that reporting of negative effects experienced by patients receiving counseling and behavior therapies had been poor. A report by the Institute of Medicine published in 2015 states that it is unclear whether CBT helps to improve cognitive impairments experienced by patients. : 265 A 2014 systematic review reported that there was only limited evidence that patients increased levels of physical activity after receiving CBT. The authors concluded that, as this finding is contrary to the cognitive behavioural model of CFS, patients receiving CBT were adapting to the illness rather than recovering from it.
Chronic fatigue syndrome
In the mid-1980s, two large outbreaks of an illness that resembled mononucleosis drew national attention in the United States. Located in Nevada and New York, the outbreaks involved an illness characterized by "chronic or recurrent debilitating fatigue, and various combinations of other symptoms, including a sore throat, lymph node pain and tenderness, headache, myalgia, and arthralgias". An initial link to the Epstein-Barr virus had the illness acquire the name "chronic Epstein-Barr virus syndrome". : 29 
In 1987, the CDC convened a working group to reach a consensus on the clinical features of the illness. The working group concluded that CFS was not new, and that the many different names given to it previously reflected widely differing concepts of the illnesss cause and epidemiology. The CDC working group chose "chronic fatigue syndrome" as a more neutral and inclusive name for the illness, but noted that "myalgic encephalomyelitis" was widely accepted in other parts of the world. In 1988, the first definition of CFS was published. Although the cause of the illness remained unknown, several attempts were made to update this definition, most notably in 1994. The most widely referenced diagnostic criteria and definition of CFS for research and clinical purposes were published in 1994 by the CDC. In 2006, the CDC commenced a national program to educate the American public and health-care professionals about CFS. Other medical terms
A range of both theorised and confirmed medical entities and naming conventions have appeared historically in the medical literature dealing with ME and CFS.