Six sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy have been found to help hypochondriacs cope with their fears, but has shown to have had limited success when a quarter of the patients quit after being told the problem was in their heads. Most hypochondriacs won’t go to see a psychiatrist, instead they have insisted upon getting further medical tests.
The participants of this study included 102 patients assigned to receive psychotherapy sessions and 85 who received routine medical care. The results of the study concluded that in the 102 patients who received six sessions of therapy, nearly 57 percent showed significant signs of improvement after a year, compared with the 32 percent who received routine medical care.
Hypochondria, a condition where a person is preoccupied with thoughts of having a serious disease, affects approximately 5 percent of patients who seek help from primary-care doctors.
Since these types of patients frequently switch doctors until they get the diagnosis they are looking for, hypochondria has remained a difficult condition to treat. Some doctors have claimed hypochondria is linked to genetics, while others have suggested it is a learned behavior from patients who have a tendency to overreact to illnesses. The cause of hypochondria has yet to be determined.
Washington Post March 24, 2004
There are many reasons why hypochondria can develop, but I suspect it stems from holding onto pent up negative feelings or not dealing with traumatic issues from the past. Seeking out medical diagnoses are avoidance tactics, which act as a form of coping mechanism.
For individuals facing this condition, I highly recommend they try EFT, a psychological acupressure technique that helps relieve negative emotions from past emotional traumas, phobias and post-traumatic stress. EFT involves simple tapping with the fingertips that is used to input kinetic energy onto specific meridians on the head and chest, while you concentrate about the specific problem such as stressful events in your past.
Unfortunately, true hypochondria is very hard to treat because patients constantly switch doctors until they get the diagnosis they can accept. You will likely want to consult an EFT practitioner to help you work through the emotional block, and you can use Gary Craig's list of EFT Practitioner Referrals to find one.
However, it is important to be aware that there are also instances when a real illness, such as fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, may be present but not widely recognized by traditional medicine. In these cases, it’s possible for doctors to label someone a hypochondriac when they are actually suffering from a real illness.
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