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CBT for Health Anxiety: Facing Your Fears with Exposure and Response Prevention

CBT for Health Anxiety: Facing Your Fears with Exposure and Response Prevention
People with health anxiety tend to see all bodily sensations and symptoms as dangerous. When symptoms or sensations emerge, people with health anxiety use "safety behaviors" to reduce their anxiety. In exposure therapy, one faces the feared stimuli (e.g., bodily sensations) without using safety behaviors.


Try the “No Help” Experiment to Improve Your Health Anxiety

Reassurance-seeking for health anxiety
  • With health anxiety, we often assume that we need to be symptom-free in order to be healthy, but this isn't true.
  • "Body noise" includes symptoms and bodily sensations that are due to normal, self-regulatory processes that are not a serious disease.
  • Behavioral experiments can help you refrain from "black-and-white thinking" when it comes to your health.