ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the various clinical ways in which hypochondriac pictures become manifest in psychoanalytic practice. It offers a description that is mainly based on the clinical experience of the variations a hypochondriac picture may present; the realization that different dynamics prevail in each of them may prove useful for their technical and therapeutic handling in psychoanalytic practice. The mechanisms underlying hypochondria are predominant modes of functioning, which does not imply they never change: they may change, become altered, and alternate with others. The chapter also describes the picture of the somatic delusions. It then deals with a clinical variety of hypochondria based on autistic mechanisms. Finally it discusses ideas concerning hypochondrias whose pathology is based on a special type of conception of the body scheme. The different types of hypochondria are not static and fixed; rather they fluctuate from one to another.
