When every hiccup sounds like the call of doom, each stomach pang hints at incipient cancer, and a headache means it's time to firm up your last will and testament, The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death. provides just the relief you need. Gene Weingarten has spent his whole life immersed in the eclectic details of bizarre symptoms, self-diagnosing every minor ache as a potentially deadly disease. Weingarten examines: The mind of a hypochondriac How your doctor can kill you Ulcers and other visceral fears The snaps, crackles, and pops of your body that spell disaster Things that can take an eye out Interpreting DocSpeak Blending the neurotic anxieties of Woody Allen, the folksiness of Garrison Keillor, and the absurdist vision of Dave Barry, Gene Weingarten conjures up a hilarious prescription for the hypochondriac that lurks inside all of us.

Nerves make us bomb job interviews, first dates, and SATs. With a presentation looming at work, fear robs us of sleep for days. It paralyzes seasoned concert musicians and freezes rookie cops in tight situations. And yet not everyone cracks. Soldiers keep their heads in combat; firemen rush into burning buildings; unflappable trauma doctors juggle patient after patient. It's not that these people feel no fear; often, in fact, they're riddled with it. In Nerve, Taylor Clark draws upon cutting-edge science and painstaking reporting to explore the very heart of panic and poise. Using a wide range of case studies, Clark overturns the popular myths about anxiety and fear to explain why some people thrive under pressure, while others falter-and how we can go forward with steadier nerves and increased confidence.

Why are chickens funnier than ducks? Can humor help us cope with tragedy? And what makes funny, well, funny? To answer such questions we look back at some of the most humorous moments from The Infinite Mind, with guests including stand-up comedians, humor columnists, and a surprise visit from Jonathan Katz, the voice of Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist and Dr. Harold Stein on the new IFC TV series ?Hopeless Pictures.' We listen to past interviews with star comedians Robert Klein, Lewis Black, and Margaret Cho as they relate their experiences in the comedy industry, and the knowledge they've gleaned. We hear a clinical explanation of how humor can help assuage fear and pain from Stanford University's Dr. David Spiegel, and humorist Al Franken relates a very sobering example of this and its relevance during the aftermath of September 11th. Other guests include author, columnist, and professional hypochondriac, Gene Weingarten, BrainBanker and singer, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, and two of the original members of the Firesign Theater, Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman. With commentary by John Hockenberry.

In a book that reframes the mental health debate, Robert L. Gallon challenges the widely-held notion that mental disorders are medical diseases. Drawing on his extensive experience as a psychologist who has worked with thousands of patients, he argues that there are no objective indicators of mental disorders and therefore no way of drawing a distinct line between people who have them and people who don't. He outlines an alternative to the disease model defined by nine dimensions of dysfunction that encompass the range of human dysfunctions typically classified as mental disorders. He explains the origin of these problems, not as chemical imbalances and genetic abnormalities, but as the complex interaction of biological, psychological and social factors, called the Biopsychosocial model. Gallon explains the history of psychiatry and how it came to develop a medical model that codifies mental disorders in the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), now in its fifth edition. He demonstrates how, in 1950s and 1960s when the miracle psychiatric drugs came on the market, it was to the great economic advantage of both pharmaceutical companies and psychiatrists to describe people's problems in the language of medicine. His alternative to this disease model suggests descriptive types--Reality Misperception, Mood Dysfunction, Anxiety, Cognitive Competence, Social Competence, Somatoform Dysfunction, Substance Dependence, Motivation and Impulse Control, and Socialization Dysfunction--that we can construct to discuss the kinds and severities of problems people experience. These are not discrete abnormalities, but are sorts of dysfunction that can be placed on dimensions of dysfunction. Table of Contents Part I History of Madness 1. Introduction and Some Definitions 2. How madness became Medical 3. The Rise of Psychiatric Diagnosis 4. An Alternative Model Part II Dimensions of Madness 5. Reality Misperception 6. Mood Dysfunction 7. Anxiety 8. Cognitive Competence 9. Social Competence 10. Somatoform Dysfunction 11. Substance Dependence 12. Motivation and Impulse Control 13. Socialization Dysfunction Part III Treatment and Other Issues 14. What is Mental Health Treatment? 15. The Future

This title seeks to change the way we think about hypochondria and to use hypochondria to sharpen our thinking about health care. The book's four parts examine hypochondria as a condition of biology; of medicine; of culture; and of narrative.