Health Anxiety Therapy
Are You Overly Preoccupied With Your Health?
Does health-related fear and anxiety interfere with your daily routine?
Have you spent countless hours researching symptoms to self-diagnose potential ailments?
Do you also worry that loved ones will come down with a catastrophic disease that leaves them incapacitated or terminally ill?
Perhaps you are hypervigilant to your bodily sensations, convinced that anything unusual could indicate something is terribly wrong. In addition to talking to others about your symptoms, you might frequently visit the doctor or emergency room to get checked out.
Even after you’re told all is well, you may fear they missed something and seek out second opinions. With your mind on overdrive, you might speculate the lab results got mixed up or that something crucial was overlooked.
Health-Related Fears May Lead To Avoidance
Maybe deep-seated fears about your health play out differently for you. Rather than seeking medical care, you might be so afraid of what an examination will reveal that you purposely avoid the doctor. Or perhaps you are concerned about the effects of environmental factors on your family’s health, such as asbestos or airborne contaminants. Perhaps you would rather keep your children home, protected from environmental threats, than encourage them to go out and explore.
As a result, you may avoid certain activities or places you deem unsafe. Your anxiety may cause you to frequently miss work or affect your relationships with friends and family.
If ruminating thoughts about illness or death get in the way of enjoying life, health anxiety therapy offers hope. Working with a specialist, you can learn strategies to manage health-related anxiety and find relief from constant worry and fear.
Health Anxiety Is More Common Than You May Realize
Even though we hear less about it than other anxiety disorders, health-related anxiety—also known as hypochondriasis, illness anxiety disorder, or somatic symptom disorder—affects more than one in twenty American adults. “According to the latest research, at least 6 percent of people will experience health anxiety during their lifetime.” [1] For some, a hyper-focus on health and tracking potential symptoms was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and never subsided, leading to increased anxiety and depression. [2]
Living In The Digital Age Can Fuel Health Anxiety
Whenever we’re online we are constantly bombarded by alarming content, often in the form of advertisements, warning us of the hidden dangers surrounding us. Whether it’s the fear of microplastics or pesticides accumulating in our body or a story about a rare diagnosis, for some, it’s easy to jump down the rabbit hole and let these hypothetical situations take root in our minds.
One Google search about a relatively benign symptom often leads to reading about other, more serious conditions. As health anxiety kicks in, we become convinced that either ourselves or a family member has contracted an undiagnosed illness.
If family members have told you that you are a hypochondriac and should seek therapy, you may feel offended by the accusation. But if illness anxiety disorder negatively impacts your mental health, you deserve support and appropriate treatment.
Therapy Can Help You Get A Handle On Health Anxiety
When you live with health anxiety, you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Rather than focus on how you would like your life to look, you imagine worst-case scenarios about a chronic illness that will likely never happen. Getting stuck in an anxiety loop over health—either your own or a loved one’s—limits your ability to live happily in the present moment.
By taking a step back and evaluating how much of your day is consumed with worry over hypothetical health issues, illness anxiety disorder therapy can help you gain perspective about how your preoccupation robs you of time you could be pursuing other interests. In counseling, we will also examine the origins of health anxiety and what keeps it in place.
What To Expect In Sessions
Anxiety treatment will be tailored to your specific fears and concerns related to health. In sessions, we will work together to develop targeted strategies to manage the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that drain you of time and energy you could direct to other activities. Once you have the right tools, you can effectively turn down the volume on the fears that consume your energy.
Together, we will look at all the ways health anxiety interferes with your life. For example, perhaps visits to the doctor and emergency room not only deplete your finances but also cut into time you could be doing more enjoyable things, like being with those you love or focusing on activities and hobbies that interest you.
Underneath it all, what are you afraid of? Is it anxiety about dying and leaving loved ones behind? Or do you fear losing control? By bringing your deep-rooted fears out of the shadows and acknowledging them, they begin to lose their potency over you.
We Utilize Evidence-Based Modalities To Help You Manage Anxiety
Health anxiety counseling can help you:
Identify what you stand to gain when health-related fears no longer monopolize your time;
Recognize the difference between a passing thought and a genuine health concern;
Calm ruminating thoughts and hypervigilance;
Provide psychoeducation about what’s happening in your body that makes you keen to notice bodily sensations; and
Manage your thoughts and feelings more productively if you are dealing with anxiety related to a legitimate chronic illness or diagnosis.
In addition to mindfulness techniques and grounding skills, we use Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to treat health anxiety. Learning DBT skills, such as distress tolerance and emotional regulation, will help you manage the anxiety you experience thinking about potential illness.
With CBT, we seek to identify what cognitive distortions may interfere with your thoughts and feelings related to health. Rather than try to talk you out of having fears, these methods will help you learn how to manage your feelings.
Drawing from ACT principles, we will help you prioritize what's important to you and then determine what actionable steps you can take to align with your values. Once you have a clear vision of how you want your life to look, it’s easier to determine what goals to set.
Although committing to therapy takes dedication, letting go of health anxiety is a truly rewarding transformation in body and mind. Rather than a constant stream of worry keeping you disengaged from life’s pleasures, you will feel like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders, allowing you to enjoy life’s simple moments.
But You May Wonder Whether Health Anxiety Therapy Is Right For You…
What if my fear is justified and my health is at risk?
Your health concerns are legitimate and the debilitating anxiety you experience can be effectively addressed with therapy. In counseling, you can learn how to reduce anxiety symptoms on a day-to-day basis as you navigate whatever challenges you face with your health. There is a way out of feeling overwhelmed with anxiety.
I tried treatment to address illness anxiety before with no success.
Seeking treatment that identifies the underlying roots of anxiety matters. If counseling was unhelpful, it likely didn’t address health anxiety specifically. Our therapy approach focuses on your unique needs, using tailored strategies to manage hypochondria effectively. With a focus on CBT, DBT, and ACT, our specialists can help you target what you’re struggling with and find better ways to cope with health anxiety.
Will health anxiety counseling force me to confront fears I’m not ready to face?
If you live with health anxiety every day, you are already facing these fears daily without the benefit of therapy. Whether your mind gets stuck in a constant worry loop or you're actively trying to avoid thinking about worst-case scenarios, your life is consumed with managing fears the best way you know how. You might have developed strategies that help in the short term, but they don’t address the underlying reasons these fears exist. As therapists who specialize in health anxiety, we can help you release these fears so they no longer weigh you down.
Breaking Free From Health Anxiety Is Possible
Let us help you find ways to feel better in your body and release the fear that something’s wrong. To schedule a free consultation to learn more about health anxiety therapy, either in-person or online, please contact us.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220215-why-even-just-testing-for-diseases-can-make-us-feel-ill
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10088605/
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