Introduction
Hypochondria, traditionally described as a constant preoccupation with one's own health, with self-observation of organs that are thought to be diseased, may be regarded as varyingly severe, ranging from chronic hypochondria, which are closer to psychosis, to transient hypochondriac states. The latter include genitalized neurotic and also confusional and psychotic elements. They are quite common in periods of change, bodily growth, migrations, etc. They also have a defensive function at the onset of paranoid psychotic pictures, as discussed by Freud in 1911.
Hypochondrias predominantly based on projections onto the outer world: the somatic delusion
The basic characteristic of the somatic delusion is a delusion of self-reference involving others, which may be focused or else spread over body areas; in any case, what matters here is the disturbance of the social bonds. This can lead to the isolation to which the subject resorts in the belief that he is being watched, since he thinks everyone looks at him and knows of his bodily defect. In the case of a patient, an elderly man that can be called as Mr. G, was found that his isolation and social ostracism were based on the somatic delusion that his body was filled with putrid and filthy matter, and he acted accordingly: he never went out for a walk or attended a social gathering, because he thought everyone stared at him and smelt the foul smell coming out from inside his body. Mr. G kept all this half-hidden until he was finally able to communicate it through a narration in which he said he had stepped on an insect that smelt bad. This allowed him to describe his own conception of the inside of his body and made it possible for me to get more acquainted with his somatic delusion................
