Hypochondria
In Sickness and in Story
Susannah B. MintzReimagines health anxiety not as pathology, but as creative possibility.
Hypochondria proposes a bold reimagining of a frequently dismissed condition. Susannah B. Mintz reframes health anxiety not as a pathology but as a site of creative potential – exploring hypochondria as a form of communication, a reorientation to time, a convergence of personal and communal identity, a declaration of bodymind needs and an embrace of ageing’s transformations. Far-ranging in its attention to historical periods, national literatures, philosophical thought and medical discourse, the book challenges the containment of suffering within narratives of professional authority. In doing so, it seeks to dispel shame and stigma, opening space for new forms of connection and understanding through a deeper attentiveness to the experience of illness.
Reimagines health anxiety not as pathology, but as creative possibility.
Hypochondria proposes a bold reimagining of a frequently dismissed condition. Susannah B. Mintz reframes health anxiety not as a pathology but as a site of creative potential – exploring hypochondria as a form of communication, a reorientation to time, a convergence of personal and communal identity, a declaration of bodymind needs and an embrace of ageing’s transformations. Far-ranging in its attention to historical periods, national literatures, philosophical thought and medical discourse, the book challenges the containment of suffering within narratives of professional authority. In doing so, it seeks to dispel shame and stigma, opening space for new forms of connection and understanding through a deeper attentiveness to the experience of illness.
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Hypochondria tends to be regarded as the exaggeration if not complete fabrication of ailments or illness. In this important and beautifully written book, however, Susannah Mintz provides a very different account of essential expression, profound reflection, and often untapped potential for making meaningful personal and sociocultural connections.
'David Bolt, Professor and Director of the Centre for Culture and Disability Studies, Liverpool Hope University
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Hypochondria is a capacious and audacious book – capacious in its investigation of an impressive range of representations of the condition, audacious in its open-mindedness toward this often dismissed, if not maligned, complaint. Mintz regards hypochondria as a legitimate “identity position,” a not necessarily pathological reaction to being a bodymind. Indeed, she dares to suggest that hypochondria poses a challenge to compulsory healthiness that we should attend to, rather than disregard.
'G. Thomas Couser, Professor of English and Founding Director of Disability Studies Program, Hofstra University
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Mintz provides a fresh and rich account of the surprisingly creative and communicative potential of hypochondria, attentive to what it reveals about medical and ableist norms, old age, care, and discrimination. The pleasure of reading Hypochondria comes not only from its honed prose but the challenge it poses to think, even to know, differently.
'Jennifer Cooke, Professor of English, Loughborough University and author of Contemporary Feminist Life-writing: The New Audacity
Introduction: Hypochondria Exists
1 Pleading the Case: Hypochondria Speaks
2 Bodies in Time: Hypochondria Stalls
3 Hyp-istemology: Hypochondria Knows
4 Bodies of Matter: Hypochondria Consolidates
5 Illness on the Doorstep: Hypochondria Precedes
6 The Wisdom of Worry: Hypochondria Ages
Afterword: Hypochondria Cares
References
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index
Susannah B. Mintz is Professor of English at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. Her books include Hurt and Pain: Literature and the Suffering Body (2014), The Disabled Detective (2019) and the memoir Love Affair in the Garden of Milton (2021).