Introduction

In the introduction to this volume, the three editors outline the general scope and rationale of the volume and provide a critical overview of the key debates about past and current exhaustion syndromes, as well as reflections on the wider socio-political significance of these debates. They focus in particular on burnout, neurasthenia, and depression, and also highlight the special status of CFS in the corpus of exhaustion syndromes, discussing the controversies surrounding this diagnosis and mentioning theories of its potential biological causes. They also reflect on the complex interplay between physical and the social forces that determine the emergence and theorisation of exhaustion syndromes.