191. Hypochondria
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman
4.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2024
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The word 'hypochondria' has travelled from meaning physical ailments in a particular region of your body, to ones that are only in your mind. It has been in fashion, and thoroughly out; it has been subject to a range of treatments; it has been lucrative for quacks; and it's a very understandable form of anxiety - which I have, and so does Caroline Crampton, author of the new book A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria.
Content note: this episode contains a lot of discussion about health anxiety. There are mentions of cancer, doctors and hospitals - but not detailed accounts of medical conditions or treatments.
Get the transcript of this episode, and find links to more information about the topics therein, at theallusionist.org/hypochondria.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is about health anxiety. |
| 0:02.0 | So, this is the illusionist, in which I, Helen Salzman, tenderly mop languages brow. |
| 0:10.0 | This episode is about health anxiety. |
| 0:12.0 | So, content note, there's a lot of discussion about health anxiety. |
| 0:16.7 | And there are mentions of cancer, doctors and hospitals, but not detailed accounts of medical conditions or treatments. |
| 0:24.0 | Remember on the 18th of April, 2024, there is a space-themed |
| 0:29.0 | illusionist live show in the Planetarium at the HR Macmillan Space Center in Vancouver, Canada. |
| 0:35.0 | It'll be really fun. |
| 0:37.0 | Possibly a one-off. |
| 0:38.0 | Unless you have a planetarium, you want some language-related entertainment to happen in. |
| 0:42.0 | I'm open. I've linked to tickets at the |
| 0:44.8 | illusionist.org slash events and they include a whole evening of space-related amusement and edutainment. |
| 0:51.3 | On with the show. What does hypercontria mean? |
| 1:00.0 | What does hypercontria mean? |
| 1:02.0 | Like what does it mean, I suppose what does it mean to you now? I suppose what does it mean to you now? I think to me now it's come to mean |
| 1:09.1 | a particular state of anxiety I experience that is related to health generally, specifically though bodily sensation. |
| 1:20.0 | I associate it very strongly with, I something it doesn't feel right it must be it |
| 1:26.8 | must be x it must be why that escalating train of anxiety what it means in a more neutral dictionary definition way, I think the OED calls it |
| 1:38.9 | the persistent and unwarranted fear that one has a serious illness. |
| 1:43.6 | Very much though a mental condition that you experience around feelings to do with your health. |
| 1:50.0 | My name is Caroline Crampton and I'm the author of A Body Made of Glass, a history of hypochondria. |
| 1:57.0 | The word hypochondria has had a pretty big shift in meaning over its lifespan since it originated as a word for a physical problem in the region of the body, then |
... |
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