How CBT can help with different mental health problems
Health Anxiety or Illness Anxiety
What is Health Anxiety or Illness Anxiety.
Health Anxiety is a mental health condition which is characterised by excessive worrying about health, and a preoccupation with the idea of being or becoming unwell. It involves an intense fear of illness.
People with health anxiety can become convinced that harmless physical symptoms are signs of serious disease or severe medical conditions. For example having a tight chest, due to feeling stressed, may be misinterpreted as signs they are having a heart attack.
Such intense fear and anxiety about their health causes people to engage in unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviours. People will spend excessive amounts of time worrying about their health and worrying about having or developing a serious illness.
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Unhelpful behaviours include:
Frequent body checking – examining themselves for lumps, tingling, pain, changes or any other signs of disease
Obsessively looking at health information online, researching symptoms, reading medical articles, and trying to find a diagnosis
Constantly needing reassurance from their GP, friends and family that they are not ill
Avoidance behaviours – staying away from hospitals, medical television shows, or discussions about illness
Acting as if they are ill – avoiding activities like exercise or social engagements due to fear of worsening an imagined condition
Doubt in medical tests – believing that doctors or medical tests have missed something serious
​​Having Health Anxiety can be debilitating and negatively affect a persons quality of life. ​The constant worry and stress can be exhausting and the physical symptoms of anxiety people experience can reinforce fears of illness. It causes emotional distress and has a detrimental impact on mood and self-esteem. The disruptions to daily life can interfere with all areas of life including work, home life, relationships, and hobbies.
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​NICE guidelines recommend 12-20 sessions.​​​​​​​​​
​​How CBT helps
CBT helps people to understand the connection between their thoughts, emotions and behaviours and how these keep the Vicious Cycle of Health Anxiety going.
CBT helps people identify triggers, deal with their constant worries about health, and learn new strategies for managing anxiety.
CBT helps people understand what triggers, situations or thoughts lead to them feeling anxiety about their health. It helps people to identify, challenge and modify negative or catastrophic thoughts and replace them with more accurate and balanced thoughts. It helps people to evaluate their worries logically rather than assuming the worst.
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CBT helps people to reduce or stop unhelpful behaviours such as checking and reassurance seeking. It helps people to tackle avoidance behaviours and face their fears through exposure therapy. Exposure helps people slowly and gradually confront the situations, thoughts, or physical sensations that trigger their health anxiety. This is done in a step-by-step way whereby they start with the situations that cause the least anxiety and build up to the ones which cause the most anxiety, gradually over time.
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CBT helps people to develop healthier coping mechanisms, build resilience and adopt effective stress management techniques. It helps people to manage their anxiety in a more helpful and healthy way. improving their overall quality of life. It helps people to gradually re-engage with life and engage in activities they may have been avoiding due to their anxiety.
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