The Psychopathology of Self-Assessed Health:A Cognitive Approach to Health Anxiety and Hypochondriasis

This paper reviews the relevant cognitive research on health anxiety and hypochondriasis, as well as research examining temperament/personality and social developmental factors relevant to health and illness cognition and associated negative emotional states. A cognitive developmental model is proposed which integrates individual difference variables, selective attention/cognitive factors, and social learning processes that may serve as vulnerability and maintenance factors in the etiology of health anxiety and hypochondriasis. Future directions for the study of cognition and hypochondriasis are suggested.