Health Anxiety
Health anxiety, also known as Hypochondriasis, is a common mental health disorder. We have great success in treating this presentation, find more info here
What is Health Anxiety
What is Health Anxiety?
Health anxiety, also known as Hypochondriasis, is a common mental health disorder that occurs in around one in ten people.
You may be experiencing health anxiety if you spend a great deal of time worrying that you have a serious illness. If you are experiencing health anxiety you may also be spending a bit of time researching symptoms of disease on the internet, checking your body for signs of illness and may have been frequently seeking health reassurance from GP’s, other specialists, friends and family but continue to worry despite these reassurances.
Please see the diagnostic criteria from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) below:
- Preoccupation with fears of having, or the idea that one has, a serious disease based on the persons misinterpretation of bodily symptoms.
- The preoccupation persists despite appropriate medical evaluation and reassurance.
- The preoccupation causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.
- The duration is at least 6 months.
- The preoccupation is not better accounted for by another anxiety disorder.
It could be that you have a preoccupation with health concerns if you:
- Have a long-term intense fear or anxiety about having a serious disease or health condition
- Worry that minor symptoms or bodily sensations mean you have a serious illness
- See doctors many times or have requested medical exams such as MRIs or exploratory surgery.
- Frequently switch doctors because you feel that your GPs are not sharing the opinion you have on your health.
- Continuously talking about suspected illnesses with family and friends.
- Obsessively doing health research on the internet, buying books or speaking to others who have been ill.
- Habitually checking your body for problems, such as lumps or rashes.
- Regularly monitoring your vital signs, such as pulse or blood pressure.
- Believing you have a disease after reading or hearing about it.
What’s the Solution?
At iRise Psychology, we recommend Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for those who are experiencing Health Anxiety. This is an evidenced based and effective treatment, also advocated by NICE. It may seem to make no sense to visit a psychologist when you’re certain that you have a physical disease. But please try to keep an open mind. By being willing to consider the possibility that your worries are based on your emotions rather than fact you may be able to let go of doubt and improve your life considerably. It could be that listening to the opinions of your family members and friends might help the first step in appreciating the extent of your health anxiety. The next step is understanding that the ongoing worries about your health can make you very miserable indeed. Therefore, seeing a psychologist for health anxiety may help.
Many people worry about health and not everyone will have health anxiety. However, if you start to search for diseases that appear to match your current symptoms, chances are you’ll find one! Minor health problems often share symptoms with more-serious problems. Therefore, you could be led up the garden path by internet research, which will create or maintain your anxiety.
It is important to say that there is nothing wrong with informing yourself about illness. Being actively interested in your own health is an essential part of staying well. However, you may be crossing the line into health anxiety if you’re overwhelmed by the idea that something is seriously wrong even though you’ve had appropriate checks and reassurance from your GP that everything’s is fine.
For more information please see the following:
http://www.ntw.nhs.uk/pic/leaflets/Health%20Anxiety%20A4%202013.pdf
A Health Anxiety Case Study
Jennifer came to therapy because she had been experiencing persistent
and intense worrying about her health for the last three months The
trigger appeared to be that her mother had a heart attack three months
ago, which she survived and had been stabilised. Jennifer found that
she had started to become anxious when she noticed her heart was
beating rapidly. She started to repetitively check her pulse, ask
others for reassurance by asking them to put their hands on her chest
to feel her heart beat. She had been googling and reading about
symptoms of heart problems and had been convinced that there was
something wrong with her. Jennifer said that she had visited her GP
on a number of occasions and he had sent her for some tests……the
results suggested that she was healthy. She had also gone to a private
hospital as she was sure her GP and other specialists had missed
something. All results came back as fine but she continued to doubt
them.
Furthermore, Jennifer found she was over sensitive to any comments
which might have an implied meaning that there was something wrong
with her. For example, if someone commented or agreed that she looked
tired she would experience anxiety as she took this as evidence to
reinforce her idea that she had a health issue.
When Jennifer noticed her heart rate increasing she would think ‘Am
I going to have a heart attack?’ Thoughts such as this would
increase anxiety….leading to an increased heart rate, being sweaty
and hot and her breathing would become shallow. At those moments these
physical changes would also reinforce her belief that there was
something wrong with her health. As a result she started to avoid
activities that would significantly increase her heart rate such as
her usual exercise routine!
The reassurance seeking, avoidance of activities, checking of her
pulse, her selective attention to heart rate changes, the rumination
about health, and the errors in her thinking (such as catastrophizing
heart rate increases) were all maintaining her anxiety. Work in
therapy started by helping Jennifer to reduce problematic behaviours
– that she thought had been helping her – while also using
cognitive techniques to challenge the problematic ways of thinking
that she had been using.
She stopped checking her pulse, stopped asking her family for
reassurance, stopped googling symptoms and self-diagnosing and she
started to reengage with the activities she had been avoiding. She
learnt to manage rumination, understand her thinking errors for what
they were and learnt to focus off of her health and onto the other
things in her life, such as her work. After eight sessions of
cognitive behavioural therapy Jennifer had experienced a massive
reduction in anxiety.
What Clients Say
After my father died unexpectedly of a heart attack, I became convinced I had heart disease. Therapy allowed me to understand the connection between my thoughts and how they were effecting me physically. I improved so quickly with treatment.
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