A History of Hypochondria

Published August 12, 2025 at 1:14 PM MDT

Writer Caroline Crampton survived cancer, but she still didn’t feel well. Instead, she was stuck with a persistent, anxious fear that the cancer would come back.

Crampton’s bout with cancer left her with hypochondria — that fear that something, anything, might make you terribly ill. Crampton has said that, at its heart, hypochondria is about seeking knowledge to beat back the fear of uncertainty. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that she wrote a book about the condition. It’s part memoir and part history, chronicling her own struggles with hypochondria, along with those of Marcel Proust’s and Virginia Woolf’s, and even ancient accounts from Greek scholars.

GUEST —

Caroline Crampton | Writer and podcaster. Her book is “A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria.” [Amazon | Bookshop]

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