Hypochondriasis neurosis (health anxiety) is a morbid preoccupation with physical symptoms or bodily functions, in which minute details are related incessantly; there is excessive preoccupation with fear of disease or a strong belief in having disease due to false interpretation of a trivial symptom.
In addition to paranoia, other personality features were found to be common among patients with hypochondriasis in this study: obsessive compulsive, avoidant, borderline, self-defeating and passive-aggressive.
Hypochondriacs typically have high levels of anxiety and are convinced they have an illness. They believe their concerns about their health are legitimate. They are not engaging in denial; they have a rock-solid belief in organic causes of disorder.
Illness anxiety disorder is a chronic mental illness previously known as hypochondria. People with this disorder have a persistent fear that they have a serious or life-threatening illness despite few or no symptoms. Medications and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) can help.
While some people's obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) focuses on their health, health anxiety (sometimes called hypochondriasis) is not a form of OCD, and OCD can involve thoughts and anxieties that aren't related to illness. If you're experiencing OCD, health anxiety, or both, effective treatments are available.
Conclusions. Bipolar disorder, especially BD II, is associated with greater hypochondriac concerns, which relates to personality disorder functioning styles and concurrent affective states.
Hypochondriasis (HYPO), an obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorder, is frequent in patients with schizophrenia (SCH) (20%), especially among those treated with clozapine (36.7%).
Also known as monosymptomatic hypochondriacal psychosis, this condition is a very rare form of a delusion. It's hard to convince people suffering from somatic delusions that their beliefs or symptoms are anything but correct.
5 Signs of an Introverted Narcissist: Hypochondria
An introverted narcissist often suffers from hypochondria. They use sickness and disease to garner attention. Introverted narcissists do not usually get attention for accomplishments or achievements, because they never try.
Somatization, hypochondriasis, and hysteria have often been considered as associated features of the borderline personality disorder.
Suicidal psychopaths, who may be depressed, can be manipulative and may express their pain through self-harm or hypochondriac complaints. In response to this depression, they draw on their characteristic defense mechanisms of megalomania, pathological lying, and inability to tolerate frustration.
People who have hypochondria actually believe they are ill, but do not manipulate test results. People who malinger pretend to be ill to gain some sort of benefit, such as avoiding military duty or trying to obtain compensation.
Hypochondriacal paranoia is an important subset of paranoid conditions, which should not be overlooked in patients with persistent hypochondriacal complaints. It is rare, in contrast to illness anxiety disorder or body dysmorphic disorder optionally with insufficient insight.
Trauma or abuse
Experiencing physical or emotional trauma can lead to hypochondria. This can include previous health trauma caused by the person having a serious illness, or by observing someone else experience a serious illness. People who experience extreme stress which they cannot relieve are also vulnerable.
Patients with hypochondriasis often are not aware that depression and anxiety produce their own physical symptoms, and mistake these symptoms for manifestations of another mental or physical disorder or disease.
How bad can hypochondria get? For some people, hypochondria can affect aspects of everyday life including making plans, traveling and work and bring on physical symptoms of anxiety. It can also cause people to avoid visiting their doctor for regular exams and check ups.
Background: In the DSM-5, the diagnosis of hypochondriasis was replaced by two new diagnositic entities: somatic symptom disorder (SSD) and illness anxiety disorder (IAD). Both diagnoses share high health anxiety as a common criterion, but additonal somatic symptoms are only required for SSD but not IAD.
Illness anxiety disorder (previously called hypochondriasis) is a psychiatric disorder defined by excessive worry about having or developing a serious undiagnosed medical condition.
Suicide among hypochondriacs is rare unless they are also seriously depressed, in which case the hypochondria increases the risk.
One characteristic frequently related to hypochondriasis is narcissism, or self-centeredness, he said.
Hypochondria is a type of anxiety disorder. It is also known as health anxiety, or illness anxiety disorder, or hypochondriasis. It is normal for people to worry about their health now and again. But people who experience hypochondria get very worried that they are seriously ill, or are about to become seriously ill.