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HEALTH ANXIETY

OVERCOMING HEALTH ANXIETY

What is Health Anxiety?

Health Anxiety is characterized by excessive worry either about having or catching an illness and performing rituals to avoid the feared consequences. Common rituals include excessive researching (e.g., googling), checking the body for signs of illness, reassurance seeking from others, and reassurance seeking (or avoidance) of medical doctors and hospitals. Individuals experience significant anxiety about health and can easily get distressed by their personal health status.

Common Signs of Health Anxiety Include:

Constantly checking body for signs/symptoms

Avoiding places, activities, or people due to illness fears

Obsessively researching illnesses online

Excessive reassurance seeking from loved ones about potential symptoms

Frequent doctor visits for reassurance

Avoiding doctor visits

Effective Treatment for Health Anxiety

This chronic worrying takes an emotional toll. Individuals with health anxiety experience high levels of stress, struggles with daily functioning, strained relationships, and an impaired quality of life.

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At our practice, we provide evidence-based treatment to help you overcome excessive illness fears.

Our therapeutic approaches include:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is a highly effective approach for treating health anxiety. Our therapist will help you identify and challenge negative thought patterns and beliefs that fuel health-related worries. Individuals learn to recognize situations, thoughts, or behaviors that trigger their health anxiety. Interventions such as exposures and behavioral experiments are conducted.

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

This cognitive-behavioral intervention entails gradual, systematic exposure to situations that provoke health anxieties in a safe environment. Individuals will learn to accept bodily sensations without judgment and stay grounded in the present moment.The goal is to live a fulfilling, values-based life while embracing uncertainty.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on cultivating psychological flexibility. ACT helps individuals develop a different relationship with difficult thoughts and make room for unpleasant feelings, and learn new ways to interact with them while making values-based choices in life.

Mindfulness Practices

Practicing mindfulness can help individuals develop a different relationship with their mind and learn how to observe their thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations without getting caught up in ideas and opinions. Being mindful means observing our inner experience non-judgmentally while staying present with what we have chosen to focus on.

"I highly recommend Kulliki. As a therapist and a mother, she is empathetic and warm, which helped me connect right away with her and share my story. When we met her, I had unresolved anger and grief at becoming a mother and losing my independence that were impacting my relationship with my husband. Kulliki helped me express these emotions while realizing I was judging myself too harshly and provided me with tools and strategies for the times when I felt falling down in a rabbit's hole of self-judgement. I was able to reconnect with my husband and regained confidence and acceptance as a woman, a mom and a professional."

START YOUR JOURNEY

BOOK A FREE 15 MINUTE CONSULTATION TODAY

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