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Health Anxiety
Health anxiety, often called by the layman hypochondria, is an anxiety disorder fuelled by obsessive compulsive disorder.
In an age when we have so much information about our health and potential ailments, there has been a marked rise in people becoming excessively anxious about their health.
At Stockport Counselling Services, we have successfully treated people with health anxiety in the past, and are confident we will be able to help you too.
For a friendly chat about your heath anxiety issues and how we can help call 07825 599794 today.
Do You Suffer from Health Anxiety?
If you answer in the affirmative to most of the following check-list, then it is likely your quality of life is being impaired by health anxiety, and that you would benefit from our counselling support.
- Do you often think there is something physically wrong with you, and identify symptoms related to a particular illness?
- Is your enjoyment of life being spoilt by a conviction that you have a serious medical condition?
- Do key areas of your life such as work, family and social life suffer due to your belief that you are suffering from an illness or medical condition?
- When a doctor or hospital fails to agree that there is anything wrong, are you convinced that they are wrong?
- Do you constantly seek out tests or medical appointments on the basis of your belief that something is wrong?
Other Aspects of Health Anxiety
Anxiety about our health can easily become obsessional, especially a belief that we are or will become seriously unwell.
A health anxiety sufferer tends to have a conviction that they are experiencing a serious illness overtime such as cancer or HIV, or continually interprets any bodily symptoms as being serious, such as pains in chest being a heart attack or a headache being a brain tumour.
The obsessive nature of this condition leads sufferers to actually seek out symptoms to verify their conviction something is ‘not right’, and can even emulate the feelings of certain symptoms.
Others may not suffer in silence but have test after medical test constantly disbelieving any medical diagnosis they are given, preferring to trust their own conviction that they are unwell.
Often sufferers of health anxiety genuinely do feel unwell,as the extreme levels of anxiety can cause headaches, breathing problems and chest pains, which only end up aggravating the belief that something is profoundly wrong.
But common to all sufferers is that help can be found through counselling, which will counter obsessional behaviours such as constantly checking your own body, and anxious beliefs.
Health anxiety is unpleasant for all sufferers but can be successfully countered by counselling.