How the pandemic has influenced the development of hypochondriasis and OCD

This is how the COVID-19 crisis makes us vulnerable to hypochondria and OCD.

Although the term "mental illness" can lead to misunderstandings, the truth is that psychological disorders do not arise in isolation within the brain; they do not simply arise from a mismatch of hormones, neurons or metabolic processes in the human body, but have Biological as well as behavioral and social causes. Our environment and the way we interact with it influences people's mental health, and much more than it seems.

That is why psychotherapy professionals have not been surprised to see to what extent the coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on the appearance of psychopathologies; in times of crisis it is normal for this to happen, and in the case of these months marked by COVID-19, there have been several at the same time: a health crisis, a social and political crisis, and an economic crisis.

For this reason, in this article we will focus on analyzing how the pandemic has exposed us to two specific disorders: hypochondriasis and OCD.. Let's start by looking at what their characteristics are separately.

What are OCD and hypochondriasis?

OCD, which stands for "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder", is a psychopathology characterized by two main elements that are reflected in its name: obsessions, which are mental images or intrusive thoughts that appear over and over again generating a high level of discomfort in the person; and compulsions, which are sequences of very specific actions that the person needs to perform each time to try to mitigate (in the short term) the harmful influence of the obsessions and allow their attention to be displaced to something else.

That is to say that while the first element generates an instantaneous discomfort that "invades" the person's consciousness and prevents him/her from thinking of something else, the second provides a momentary remedyHowever, in the long run it only aggravates the problem because it makes the obsessions even more important and the person does not feel protected until the compulsion is carried out each time.

Hypochondriasis (sometimes more officially called "somatic symptom disorder", although the latter term is broader and also covers other similar disorders) is a psychopathological disorder in which the person develops strong anxiety in the unfounded belief that he or she is suffering from at least one disease.

In such cases, the degree of discomfort is so strong that not even a visit to the doctor for a check-up and reassurance that everything is all right will serve to reassure the person in the medium and long term, as he or she quickly reinterprets certain experiences as a sign that he or she has developed a pathology, usually a severe one. Thus, hypochondriasis makes the person very prone to fall again and again in the self-diagnosisinterpreting in the most pessimistic way possible all kinds of sensations or changes in the body whose causes are not well known, and that really does not have to indicate that he/she suffers from a disease.

What do these two psychological alterations have in common?

From what we have seen so far, OCD and hypochondriasis seem like two clearly distinguishable disorders; and to a large extent they are. However, as often happens with mental disorders, they overlap in several of their characteristics, the main one being the ease with which they lead the sufferer to experience obsessive-type thoughts.

That is, in both hypochondriasis and obsessive-compulsive disorder, we are more vulnerable to developing a vicious cycle of anxiety and intrusive thoughts that overwhelm us emotionally. thoughts that overwhelm us emotionally. In the case of OCD, these can consist of all kinds of disturbing memories or imaginary situations that we assume to be predictions of what might happen, and in many cases memory and imagination mix, leading us to exaggerate events that actually occurred. In the case of hypochondria, intrusive thoughts usually have more to do with the earthly world of sensations, changes in skin color, discomfort in the joints....

In any case, in these two psychological disturbances the person "learns", without realizing it, to attract to his conscience a series of mental contents that make him feel very bad.In OCD, compulsions that must be repeated systematically without departing from the pattern of previous occasions (e.g., scratching the right ear four times and the nose ten times, in that order): in OCD compulsions that must be repeated systematically without departing from the patterns marked by the previous occasions (for example, scratching four times the right ear and ten times the nose, in this order), and in hypochondria self-checking behaviors and searches on the Internet or in medical books to try to self-diagnose and better understand the alleged disease suffered, as well as the adoption of all kinds of extreme precautions to prevent the problem from worsening.

How has the pandemic influenced the emergence of these psychological disorders?

The coronavirus pandemic has given rise to a context that is the ideal breeding ground for psychopathologies such as OCD and hypochondriasis.

On the one hand, a media bombardment of sensationalist or biased news that have focused on the most tragic aspects The crisis of the COVID-19 crisis to capture the attention of onlookers; on the other hand, periods of confinement that have left people vulnerable to emotional distress with fewer resources of social support to face this very complicated situation, having to remain in relative social isolation; in addition, the fear of infecting and being infected, based on a microscopic source of danger that, being invisible to the eye, leaves a large margin for ambiguity and anticipatory anxiety; and finally, an economic crisis that has pushed many families to the limit, so that many citizens in a precarious situation have had to remain in a "state of alert" and trying to perform at their best without interruption, in order to minimize the risk of possible complications due to dismissal, bankruptcy of the family business, etc.

And to all this we would have to add the bewilderment that has reigned for monthsThe feeling that no one is clear on how to protect themselves and their families from COVID-19 has shifted the entire responsibility for protecting themselves and their families onto individuals, which in turn has led to a shift in the responsibility of individuals to protect themselves and their families. This feeling that no one is clear about how to protect themselves from COVID-19 has shifted the entire responsibility for protecting themselves and their families onto individuals, putting a great deal of pressure on large segments of the population.

Thus, people may develop hypochondria as a response to the need to be alert to the first symptoms of the disease, and others may develop OCD to avoid the risk of contagion as much as possible. avoid the risk of contagion as much as possible and even to purge a sense of guilt for perhaps having infected others in the past.

All of these experiences are linked to the fear of contracting COVID-19 and/or infecting loved ones, and in turn, predispose people to desperately seek expectations and certainties about how the virus works and the emotional misalignments of pandemic fear. And unfortunately, disorders such as hypochondria and OCD, although they generate great discomfort, provide a series of references for "locating oneself" in the face of the COVID-19 crisis and its consequences. and its consequences: to know approximately what is the risk of suffering a tragedy if something is not done to avoid it (very high), to generate guidelines to regulate the immediate discomfort, to feel relatively "prepared", etc.

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I am a General Health Psychologist and in my practice we treat people of all ages with problems such as generalized anxiety, OCD, low self-esteem, depression, hypochondria and bereavement. Sessions can be done either in person or through the online therapy modality.