Mental Disorders: How To Control The Fear Of Being Sick

People who are repeatedly afraid of being sick often receive little empathy from those close to them, who label them as pretenders, obsessives, fabricators, or hypochondriacs. However, it turns out that although this person does not have the disease they fear so much, they are not healthy either.

Hypochondrism, which is the name given to the constant fear of being ill, is a psychological disorder that greatly affects daily life.

Calling someone a hypochondriac seems to be almost an insult these days, says psychologist Timo Slotta, who works as a psychotherapist at a specialist clinic in Cologne. It seems that it is enough for someone to have a fear or worry that they have a disease that cannot be detected by a medical test for everyone to tell them they are a hypochondriac.

The body, under permanent observation

To make a real diagnosis, one needs to go one step further. “Those affected are overly concerned with the terrible illnesses they could suffer from,” says Slotta. “Usually these are illnesses that a person can suffer from for months or years and that will slowly kill them,” he explains.

People with this disorder go to the doctor frequently, think about it a lot, read a lot about the subject, and do a kind of “body checking”, that is, they scan their skin for suspicious spots, they feel their skin until it hurts, they do balance tests, they regularly measure their blood pressure or keep an eye on their blood oxygen level.

The problem is not that people are scared by certain symptoms from time to time, says Slotta. What is unhealthy is when people feel that they must be seen no matter what and their daily life is disrupted.

“Those affected develop a protective behavior: they stop going to work or doing sports,” explains Sabine Köhler, a psychiatrist and director of the Association of Neurologists in Germany. In addition, there is a time aspect. To be able to make a diagnosis, those affected must be convinced that they are suffering from a serious illness for at least half a year. “Patients refuse to accept that there is nothing wrong with them and constantly ask for further tests.”

Possible causes of hypochondrism

The causes that lead a person to develop this type of disorder have not yet been determined, but there are several hypotheses. On the one hand, there may be a certain genetic predisposition, which may have something to do with the style of education received or may have been an impact of previous illnesses. Having a weak bond with parents in the first year of life could also cause this type of disorder.

People who live in an environment where many serious illnesses are present are often affected, Slotta notes. Mindset is also a factor, as hypochondriacs often fear causing or encouraging illness through their behavior or thoughts.

A difficult diagnosis

Although there are well-defined criteria for establishing a diagnosis, it is not so easy to do so. “It is a hidden illness,” says Köhler, “because although those affected insist on receiving a diagnosis, what they are looking for is a diagnosis of a physical illness. They usually do not want to hear about a psychological disorder.”

The role of the family doctor is important here, according to Köhler. In his view, if a person has seen professionals from five different specialties in a quarter without having any obvious health problems, he would do well to undergo some kind of psychiatric or psychosomatic analysis or psychological treatment.

“Hypochondrism can be treated,” says Slotta, who claims that between two-thirds and four-fifths of those affected benefit from psychotherapy. About half of those affected benefit from medication.

“Talk therapy is hard work, no doubt about it,” Slotta acknowledges. However, medication treatments only work as long as you take the medication. “It’s different in talk therapy.”