"Hypochondria (illness anxiety disorder), sometimes called hypochondriasis or health anxiety, is worrying excessively that you are or may become seriously ill. You may have no physical symptoms. Or you may believe that normal body sensations or minor symptoms are signs of severe illness, even though a thorough medical exam doesn't reveal a serious medical condition. You may experience extreme anxiety that body sensations, such as muscle twitching or fatigue, are associated with a specific, serious illness. This excessive anxiety — rather than the physical symptom itself — results in severe distress that can disrupt your life."

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     Culture and Hypochondria symposium were held at Tate modern in 2009. This event explores the history and contemporary meaning of illness and anxiety as mediated by artists, writers and philosophers. Speakers include Julia Borossa, Steven Connor, Brian Dillon, Darian Leader, Caroline Rooney, exploring the contemporary meaning of health anxiety through history.

 

            Hypochondria is an ancient name for a malady that is always fretfully new: the fear of disease and the experience of one’s body as alien and unpredictable. Its history is ambiguous: an organic disease with verifiable symptoms, it slowly lost its physical attributes until it came to be seen as a purely psychological disturbance or disreputable character trait. Every historical period has felt itself to be an era of heightened hypochondriacal anxieties; the disorder remains current, but its manifestations shift and alter and overlap from one century, or one decade, to another. The history of hypochondria is an X-ray of the more solid and familiar history of medicine; it reveals the underlying structure of our hopes and fears about our bodies.

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          After listening to the recorded audio, There's one interesting concept told by Steven Connor, Professor of modern literature and theory, and Academic Director of the London Consortium Graduate Programme. Steven has said that 'maintaining health seems to be achieved be negative ways'. As soon as we are asked if we feel quite well, our health has been put into question. Therefore we starting to look deep within ourselves, seeing the unseen, carefully observe our body to maintain our health in its best condition out of fear of an illness. The 'illness', whether it is real or not, provokes self-conscious. Perhaps self consciousness is some form of sickness that keeps people focusing on their health issues. Perhaps in our minds, knowing the existing illness is more important than curing. Hypochondria is not to distinguish the disease, but to identify it. 

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           Hypochondria may comes in many forms. Heat in the bowels. Pain in the belly. Winds howling in the chest. Cold sweat, cold joints. Ears sing now and then. The blood vaporised and the eyes turn red. One of the most extreme form of hypochondria is the symptom called 'glass delusion' where you imagined  that you were made of a fragile substance, therefore you are afraid to do something that would break it. Sitting to harsh might break your body, swinging your arms too fast might shattered your joints. From my point of view, these extreme condition of hypochondria starting to blurred the line between what is real and what's not. The body, human body, starting to transform into something else other than itself. Bones became glass, blood became magma or even the lungs that evaporated into masses of smoke. The reality started to shift and the perspective of our mind is disrupted.

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