Clinic To Treat Healthy Hypochondriacs

Norway is opening a hospital clinic to help hypochondriacs figure out what’s ailing them - or, more precisely, what isn’t ailing them.

Even though hypochondriacs suffer imaginary illnesses or worry excessively about their health, “they really do suffer,” Dr. Ingvard Wilhelmsen said in an interview Thursday with the NTB news agency.

The clinic, which opens March 1 in the west coastal city of Bergen, will help hypochondriacs understand the psychological root of their problems, said Wilhelmsen, who is an internist and a psychiatrist.

The clinic will only treat patients who are in good physical health, he said.