Writing with grace, humor, and an expert's eye for revealing detail, Susan Baur illuminates the processes by which hypochondriacs come to adopt and maintain illness as a way of life.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
While hypochondriacs drive many doctors to despair, clinical understanding of this elusive condition has advanced well beyond Freud, who rejected these chronic complainers as untreatable. Baur cites famous exampleslifelong vomiter Charles Darwin, ever-convalescent poet Sara Teasdale, fellow-suffers James Boswell and Samuel Johnsonto show how the hypochondriac uses ailments, real or imagined, to cope with personal problems. Exposing the ways a preoccupation with illness can be instilled in childhood, she evaluates various therapeutic approachesneo-Freudian, behavior modification, group sessions, drugs, family therapy. She ponders the high incidence of hypochondria among doctors, dancers, musicians and artists, and investigates the stresses that generate this condition among the elderly. A psychologist and author of The Edge of an Unfamiliar World, Baur views American culturewith its self-centeredness, widespread poverty and obsession with the bodyas a breeding ground for hypochondria.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
An ailment that has long challenged the medical profession, hypochondria is essentially a transmutation of emotional or psychological problems into physical disabilities deemed socially acceptable. Baur examines this wide-spread malady through the prism of multiple disciplinesanthropology, sociology, psychology, and medicinedemonstrating that both symptoms and treatment express cultural and social biases. She further quotes extensively such well-known hypochondriacs as Samuel Johnson, Charles Darwin, and Sara Teasdale, though her method of interweaving contemporary with historic incident is slightly confusing. With its broad focus on an intriguing topic, this should have considerable reader appeal. Carol R. Glatt, Northeastern Hospital of Philadelphia
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A partial etiology of hypochondria,
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This review is from: Hypochondria: Woeful Imaginings (Paperback)
Baur, a psychologist,efficiently examines the 'woeful imaginings' of the hypochondriac -- from mostly historical perspectives. A chapter on world-class hypochondriac James Boswell, biographer of Samuel Johnson, is a highlight, as is a chapter on European treatments and philosophies of this malady. Imagined illness' role in childhood, among the elderly, in other cultures; its function in relationships -- all discussed. The historic stuff is great. The book falters on the contemporary problems of hypochondria. Baur's clinical approach seems sensible and pragmatic, and I would suspect that it doesn't work.Can hypochondriacs really 'unlearn' it? I wish she had dug a little deeper in her final chapter, "Getting Better." Definitely worth reading.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
healing power of history & literature,
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This review is from: Hypochondria: Woeful Imaginings (Paperback)
A graceful, lovely little book - I am delighted to be offered Miguel de Unamuno and Hannah Arendt for self-help! (And I wish more popular psychology books had bibliographies like hers!)
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