Anxiety · Treatment guide
Health Anxiety
Excessive worry about having a serious illness, checking and reassurance-seeking behaviors.
In this guide
Overview
Treated as an OCD-spectrum / anxiety problem. Cognitive misappraisal of body sensations + checking/reassurance behaviors maintain the disorder. ERP-style work targets the safety behaviors directly.
First-line treatments
- CBT — Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Salkovskis-model CBT — cognitive work on misappraisal + behavioral experiments.
- ERP — Exposure and Response Prevention (for OCD)
Reduce checking, reassurance-seeking, and avoidance of triggers.