Towards a Psychosomatic Conception of Hypochondria

A rigorous and groundbreaking study. Martine Derzelle is the first researcher to approach hypochondria as a relational pathology. Martine Derzelle is the first researcher to approach hypochondria as a relational pathology. The author tackles a subject that has puzzled care professionals for decades: hypochondria. Martine Derzelle confronts all specialists (psychotherapists, psychiatrists, doctors, psychosomaticians) with the paradox of this pathology and the theoretical void on which the approach to those patients who express a suffering of various kinds has stood for more than a century. In the first part, the author highlights the lack of theoretical elaboration on hypochondria in the existent literature; in the second part, on the basis of clinical examples, she analyzes the nature of the disease, and then offers a completely innovative theoretical elaboration. Finally, in the third part, she proposes a new and specific approach to treating this pathology at both the theoretical and clinical levels within the framework of psychoanalysis and implementing key concepts from relational psychosomatics.