The patient was beset with anxieties both reasonable and unreasonable, tangible and intangible, visible and hidden, about present and future.
The patient presented as an extremely anxious and frustrated individual. The unique feature of this patient’s anxiety was an INTENSE CONCERN ABOUT HEALTH. She regarded her illness with disproportionate dread, panicked at symptoms which others would ignore and as a result imagined that she had every disease she read about. She used to SURF THE INTERNET FOR HOURS TOGETHER AND GOOGLE HER SYMPTOMS, IMAGINING SHE HAD EVERY POSSIBLE DISEASE. She was driven to the point of despair.
The patient had visited many doctors, trying therapy after therapy, seeking both confirmation of the gravity of her complaint and REASSURANCE of its curability.
When airing her views on health and medicine, she talked excitedly about the wonderful insight she gained after consulting such and such website and pointed out a number of important problems that she never knew she had, until she read that stuff on the internet.