Does this sound familiar?
The headache that must be a brain tumor. The racing heart that signals heart disease. The fatigue that could only mean something serious. You’ve Googled symptoms at 2 AM. You’ve scheduled doctor’s appointments just to hear “you’re fine”—and felt relieved for maybe a day before the worry returned.
Health anxiety isn’t about being dramatic. It’s a pattern where normal bodily sensations get interpreted as evidence of serious illness, triggering a cycle of fear, checking, and seeking reassurance that never fully resolves.
At Therapy Group of DC, our therapists specialize in treating health anxiety. We help you break the cycle of worry so you can enjoy life without constant fear of illness.
Is Health Anxiety Therapy Right for You?
You might benefit from health anxiety therapy if you:
- Frequently worry that physical symptoms indicate serious illness, even when doctors say you’re fine
- Find temporary relief from medical reassurance, but the worry returns quickly
- Spend significant time researching symptoms and medical conditions online
- Repeatedly check your body for signs of illness—lumps, moles, heart rate, blood pressure
- Avoid doctors or health-related conversations because they trigger anxiety
- Have difficulty enjoying life because you’re preoccupied with health concerns
- Notice that loved ones are frustrated by your constant health worries
What to know:
- Health anxiety (also called illness anxiety disorder) is recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- Illness anxiety disorder is one of several anxiety disorders involving excessive fear
- Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most effective treatment for health anxiety
- With effective treatment, most people with health anxiety experience significant improvement
Understanding Health Anxiety
Health anxiety involves excessive worry about having or acquiring a serious illness. People with health anxiety often misinterpret normal bodily sensations—a headache, muscle twitch, or racing heart—as signs of serious medical conditions like brain cancer or heart disease.
The American Psychiatric Association recognizes illness anxiety disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Illness anxiety disorder is characterized by preoccupation with having a serious illness, minimal physical symptoms, high anxiety about health status, and excessive health-related behaviors like repeatedly checking for signs of illness or seeking reassurance from healthcare providers.
The Health Anxiety Cycle
Trigger. Something triggers health anxiety—a bodily sensation or news about illness. Even normal sensations like elevated heart rate can start the cycle.
Interpretation. The body sensations get interpreted as evidence of serious illness. A headache becomes “probably a brain tumor.”
Fear and checking. This triggers intense worry and physical symptoms of anxiety. To manage the fear, you engage in checking, researching, or seeking medical reassurance from doctors.
Temporary relief. Medical tests come back normal. Doctors confirm good health. But the relief doesn’t last—new symptoms emerge and the cycle repeats.
What Triggers Health Anxiety?
Common triggers include normal bodily sensations, reading about illness or disease, medical appointments, stress, and family history of serious illness. Personality traits like perfectionism and a tendency to worry can increase vulnerability to health anxiety.
Health Anxiety Symptoms
Cognitive and Emotional Symptoms
- Preoccupation with having or developing a serious illness
- Misinterpreting normal bodily sensations as signs of disease
- Excessive worry about health that feels impossible to control
- Difficulty accepting medical reassurance
- Significant distress about health status
Behavioral Symptoms
- Repeatedly checking your body for signs of illness
- Seeking reassurance from doctors, loved ones, or the internet
- Frequently scheduling medical appointments and requesting medical tests
- Avoiding medical information or health-related triggers
- Researching symptoms and medical conditions extensively
Physical Symptoms
Physical symptoms of anxiety compound the problem. When you’re anxious, you may experience racing heart, dizziness, muscle tension—body sensations that become new sources of worry. Health anxiety symptoms can range from mild discomfort to significant distress that affects daily functioning.
Health Anxiety vs. Related Conditions
Illness anxiety disorder vs. somatic symptom disorder. Illness anxiety disorder involves worry about illness with minimal physical symptoms. Somatic symptom disorder involves significant physical symptoms plus excessive thoughts about those symptoms. Both are anxiety disorders requiring different treatment approaches.
Health anxiety vs. obsessive compulsive disorder. Health anxiety can look similar to OCD when it involves repeatedly checking and seeking reassurance. Many anxiety disorders share features with obsessive compulsive disorder.
Health anxiety vs. panic disorder. Panic disorder involves sudden, intense fear with physical symptoms. People with illness anxiety disorder have more sustained worry about illness between episodes. Both are anxiety disorders that respond to cognitive behavioral therapy.
A mental health professional can help clarify which anxiety disorders or related conditions describe your experience.
How We Treat Health Anxiety
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a first-line treatment for health anxiety and other anxiety disorders. Therapy CBT helps you identify and challenge misinterpretations of bodily sensations and develop more balanced responses to health concerns.
CBT also addresses the behaviors that maintain illness anxiety disorder—gradually reducing checking, reassurance-seeking, and avoidance. CBT is the most popular form of treatment for anxiety disorders including illness anxiety disorder.
Psychodynamic Therapy
For many people, health anxiety connects to deeper patterns—early life experiences with illness, loss, or feeling unsafe in your body. Psychodynamic therapy explores these roots, helping you understand why health concerns have taken on such power. This approach examines how family history and past experiences with illness shape your current fears.
Existential Approaches
Health anxiety often reflects a struggle with fundamental uncertainties—mortality, the limits of control, the vulnerability of having a body. Existential therapy helps you confront these realities directly rather than through anxious scanning and reassurance-seeking. Learning to tolerate uncertainty is central to finding peace.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT helps you accept anxious thoughts without being controlled by them. Rather than fighting to eliminate health worries, you learn to take action aligned with your values despite the anxiety. ACT is useful for illness anxiety disorder and other anxiety disorders.
Medication
Medication can help manage symptoms of anxiety disorders, particularly when combined with talking therapy. However, medication is not the primary treatment for illness anxiety disorder. If medication might help, we can refer you to medical professionals.
What to Expect in Treatment
Your therapist will assess your specific health worries, what triggers health anxiety, and how it affects your daily life. They’ll also assess for other anxiety disorders or mental health conditions that may contribute.
Early sessions focus on understanding your illness anxiety disorder pattern. Psychoeducation about how anxiety affects the body helps you understand why physical symptoms don’t necessarily indicate disease.
Middle-phase work involves cognitive restructuring and behavioral experiments that help you test your fears and reduce safety behaviors.
Later sessions prepare you for managing health anxiety independently.
Most people see meaningful improvement within 12-16 sessions. Like other anxiety disorders, illness anxiety disorder responds well to structured treatment. Success means health anxiety no longer controls your everyday life.
Strategies for Managing Health Anxiety
- Limit reassurance-seeking. Each time you seek medical reassurance, you reinforce the anxiety cycle. Practice sitting with discomfort.
- Reduce body checking. Repeatedly checking for signs of illness maintains anxiety. Set limits on checking behaviors.
- Limit health research. Avoid Googling symptoms. Limiting safety behaviors helps reduce health anxiety.
- Practice mindfulness. Observe bodily sensations without immediately interpreting them as serious medical conditions.
Our Health Anxiety Therapists
Our therapists bring expertise in anxiety disorders and understand how health anxiety hijacks your attention.
Dr. Dana Treistman, Ph.D.
Dr. Treistman uses cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness to help adults manage anxiety. Her practical approach helps clients challenge health worries and build tolerance for uncertainty. View Dr. Treistman’s full profile →
Dr. Regan Mayo, Ph.D.
Dr. Mayo uses psychodynamic approaches to help clients understand the deeper roots of their anxiety. Her focus on how life experiences shape current fears helps clients address health anxiety at its source. View Dr. Mayo’s full profile →
Dr. Michael Burrows, Ph.D.
Dr. Burrows draws on psychodynamic and relational approaches to help clients explore why health concerns have taken on such power. His focus on self-understanding helps clients examine the fears driving their symptoms. View Dr. Burrows’s full profile →
Dr. Rose Medcalf, Psy.D.
Dr. Medcalf integrates client-centered and psychodynamic approaches with a warm, validating style. She creates space for exploring the fears and vulnerabilities that underlie health anxiety. View Dr. Medcalf’s full profile →
Dr. Paul Rizzo, Psy.D.
Dr. Rizzo uses existential and humanistic approaches to help clients find peace with uncertainty. His focus on meaning and acceptance addresses the deeper existential concerns that often fuel health anxiety. View Dr. Rizzo’s full profile →
Xihlovo Mabunda, MS, LPC
Xihlovo integrates EMDR and psychodynamic therapy to address the deeper roots of anxiety. When past experiences with illness or loss fuel current health fears, her approach helps process those origins. View Xihlovo’s full profile →
Dr. Kevin Isserman, Psy.D.
Xihlovo integrates EMDR and psychodynamic therapy to address the deeper roots of anxiety. When past experiences with illness or loss fuel current health fears, her approach helps process those origins. View Dr. Isserman’s full profile →
Dr. Jennifer Melo, Psy.D.
Dr. Melo integrates psychodynamic and trauma-focused approaches to address patterns driving health fears. Her expertise with anxiety helps clients understand the origins of their preoccupation with illness. View Dr. Melo’s full profile →
Begin Health Anxiety Therapy in Washington DC
You’ve spent enough time trapped in the cycle—the worry, the checking, the Googling, the medical appointments that never fully reassure you.
Health anxiety is treatable. With the right support, you can break the anxious cycle and reclaim your well-being.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if I have health anxiety?
Signs include frequent worry about having a serious illness, seeking medical reassurance but not feeling satisfied, spending significant time checking your body or researching symptoms, and difficulty enjoying daily life due to health concerns.
What do therapists do for health anxiety?
Therapists use cognitive behavioral therapy to challenge catastrophic interpretations of bodily sensations and reduce checking and reassurance-seeking. Exposure therapy and psychodynamic approaches can also help. The goal is to break the cycle of worry.
How do I calm down health anxiety?
The 3-3-3 rule for anxiety can help: name three things you see, three sounds you hear, and move three parts of your body. For lasting relief, cognitive behavioral therapy addresses underlying patterns. Limiting reassurance-seeking and body checking also helps.
What’s the difference between health anxiety and actually being sick?
Health anxiety involves excessive worry that persists despite medical reassurance and normal medical tests. The emotional distress is disproportionate to actual medical risk. If healthcare providers consistently find nothing wrong and you still can’t stop worrying, that pattern suggests illness anxiety disorder.
Health anxiety affects up to 7.7% of the general population and can significantly disrupt daily life—but effective treatment exists.
Therapy Group of DCEvidence-Based Care
We use psychodynamic therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and acceptance-based approaches tailored to social anxiety.
