What is Health Anxiety?
Health anxiety is an anxiety condition that is often grouped within the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) spectrum of mental disorders. Individuals affected by health anxiety are convinced that harmless physical symptoms are indicators of serious disease or severe medical conditions. For example, if a person experiencing health anxiety feels their chest is getting tight, they may believe that they are having a heart attack.
Individuals with health anxiety tend to focus on life-threatening conditions such as cancer and HIV or AIDs. However, the person experiencing health anxiety may fixate on any type of illness.
How to stop health anxiety symptoms
Cognitive behavioural therapy for health anxiety
Since it’s possible to suffer with anxiety and a serious medical condition, medical problems must be ruled out with a thorough physical exam. Once this is accomplished, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is the best therapy for health anxiety and any form of health related anxiety. This is because CBT aims to help you overcome fears by correcting irrational thoughts and changing problematic behaviors. By acquiring a certain mindset, you begin to approach anxious situations differently and learn to tolerate discomfort and uncertainty. Health anxiety can be overcome with the help of a skilled anxiety specialist and CBT therapist. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy also teaches us how to cure health anxiety naturally.
Find out more about CBT on our Cognitive Behavioural Therapy page.
Psychoanalytic therapy for health anxiety
Psychoanalytic Therapy is another therapeutic approach which can be used to treat health anxiety alongside CBT. Psychoanalytic therapy will be good for if you would like to deal with long-standing, severe, or repetitive health anxiety. It’s also helpful for those who would like to understand themselves more thoroughly. Find out more about what a psychoanalytic therapy session would involve on our Psychoanalytic therapy page.