Susannah B. Mintz, "Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story" (Reaktion, 2026)

Mar 15, 2026

Susannah B. Mintz, Professor of English at Skidmore College and author of Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story, reframes health anxiety as creative and communicative rather than pathological. She explores historical meanings, modern diagnostic shifts, hypochondria as social realism and knowledge production, links to politics and aging, and how stigma and bias shape care.

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ANECDOTE

Author's COVID Origin Story

Mintz began the project during COVID because the boundary between reasonable and excessive worry about illness felt contestable.
Her personal identification as 'on the continuum of anxious healthy people' motivated the inquiry.

insights

INSIGHT

Hypochondria As Epistemological Signal

Hypochondria is a mode of being that reveals epistemological limits rather than just a pathology.
Susannah B. Mintz argues from COVID-era ambiguity that health anxiety exposes how uncertain embodied knowledge and truth can be.

insights

INSIGHT

Hypochondria's Medical Reclassification Over Centuries

The meaning of hypochondria has shifted from visceral organ-based complaints to psychiatric categories like Illness Anxiety Disorder and Somatic Symptom Disorder.
Mintz traces continuity: historical gut-centered descriptions (Robert Burton, Boswell) persist alongside modern immune/cytokine explanations.

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Why Mintz wrote on hypochondria

01:36 • 5min

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Historical meanings of hypochondria

06:16 • 4min

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Modern diagnostic categories and shifts

10:45 • 3min

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Hypochondria as social realism

Hypochondria as communication

17:02 • 6min

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Hip time: rethinking chronological norms

22:52 • 9min

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Hip epistemology: knowledge from illness

31:49 • 6min

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Hypochondria, borders, and politics

37:54 • 4min

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Bias, misdiagnosis, and medical gaslighting

41:54 • 4min

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Aging, hypochondria, and value

45:45 • 5min

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Reading hypochondria differently

50:23 • 2min

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Susannah B. Mintz's 'Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story' rethinks hypochondria across history, literature, medical discourse, and philosophy to argue that health anxiety can be generative rather than merely pathological. The book traces the term's evolution from visceral explanations in early modern texts through 19th-century invalid culture to contemporary psychiatric diagnoses like Illness Anxiety Disorder. Mintz proposes concepts such as 'hip time' and 'hip epistemology' to show how hypochondriacal attention reshapes experiences of time, knowledge, identity, aging, and community. She explores how hypochondria can challenge medical authority, reveal social biases in healthcare, and offer alternative forms of communication and creativity. The work aims to reduce stigma and invite more compassionate, nuanced responses to embodied uncertainty.

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Hypochondria: In Sickness and in Story (Reaktion, 2026) proposes a bold reimagining of a frequently dismissed condition. Dr. Susannah B. Mintz reframes health anxiety not as a pathology but as a site of creative potential – exploring hypochondria as a form of communication, a reorientation to time, a convergence of personal and communal identity, a declaration of bodymind needs and an embrace of ageing’s transformations. Far-ranging in its attention to historical periods, national literatures, philosophical thought and medical discourse, the book challenges the containment of suffering within narratives of professional authority. In doing so, it seeks to dispel shame and stigma, opening space for new forms of connection and understanding through a deeper attentiveness to the experience of illness.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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