Phantom Illness: Recognizing, Understanding, and Overcoming Hypochondria

Draws on interviews with physicians and the case studies of sufferers to describe the nature of hypochondria, explains how medicine has dismissed the disorder, and discusses a range of treatments

Carla Cantor's long, dark road to hypochondria began when she crashed a car she was driving, killing a friend of hers. She couldn't forgive herself, and a few years later began imagining that she was suffering from lupus. Many years and two hospitalizations later, she wrote this book not only about her experiences, but about hypochondria in general (now more politely referred to as a "somatoform disorder"). No matter what one chooses to call them, psychosomatic disorders--imagined illnesses--present a huge burden to medical systems, and only by taking them seriously can we hope to alleviate their costs. By putting a human face on this often laughed-at syndrome, and by showing ways out of it, Cantor provides a great service not only to "somatizers" and their loved ones, but to the entire healthcare system.