Therapy for health anxiety in the UK

Health Anxiety is the excessive worry and anxiety over one's current or future health.

In some cases, it can come up following a health issue with your personal health or having a person close to you suffering from a health condition. It can also develop after knowing of someone who has a negative experience with a particular illness or condition.

Health anxiety can look like:

-            Scanning body for physical sensations, like changes in heart rates, breathing, symptoms of dizziness, or aches and pains.

-            Interpreting any bodily sensations as evidence that something is wrong with your health and that you suffer from an undiscovered condition.

-            Reduced or no trust in western medicine and the ability to cope with any serious illness.

-            Attending regular GP appointments and medical tests to find out what’s wrong with your health, even if the tests are coming back clean.

-            Seeking reassurance from doctors and people around you that you are ok and nothing bad will happen.

-            At the same time, it could also be avoiding seeing health professionals and not knowing to find out “what is wrong” in a fear of something being terribly bad.

-            Avoiding doing activities that might put strain on to your heart, like exercising, running etc.

-            Beliefs about being exceptionally vulnerable to illnesses in general, and/or particular illnesses.

How can Cognitive Behavioural Therapy help you overcome Health Anxiety, for those based in the UK?

Ways that therapy for health anxiety in the UK works;

First of all, therapy for health anxiety will help you to understand your problem better, understand what is keeping the anxiety going, what behaviours are maintaining and reinforcing the problem and what thoughts are keeping you stuck in fear and panic.

Once, you and your therapist have identified what behaviours you are using at the moment that are not helping the fear reduce, then you will practice together on dropping those and replacing them with more constructive and helpful one.

Additionally, you will work on exploring and modifying catastrophic beliefs that something bad is going to happen to you, and increase your ability to ignore these thoughts when they come.

Finally, you will be able to reclaim your life, do all the activities that you have been meaning to do that perhaps your anxiety has been stopping you from doing and spend your time in more meaningful ways than worrying about your health.

Your Next Step: Contact me here to book your free call

Book your free call today to discuss your goals, ask questions, and discover whether a therapy is right for you. I can offer an assessment for health anxiety and treatment plan for clients in the UK.

Alexandra Kalogeropoulou (BSc, MSc, PG Cert, PG Dip).

BABCP-Accredited Cognitive Behavioural Therapist with over 10 years of experience supporting clients in London, UK and all over the UK. Specialises in treating anxiety and depression, and uses evidence-based approaches. Alexandra is committed to providing compassionate, expert care for her clients across the UK.