Health Anxiety / Hypochondriasis Therapy and Counseling in San Jose

Hypochondriasis, also known as health anxiety or health phobia, involves an excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness or disease, even when there is no medical evidence to support the presence of an illness. If you have excessive health anxiety or hypochondriasis, you may:

• Be overly focused on your physical health and unable to control your health-related worry
• Have an unrealistic fear of having a serious disease or health problem
• Become unduly alarmed about any physical symptoms you detect, no matter how minor the symptoms may be
• Seek out repeated reassurance from doctors, family and friends, only to have your health anxiety persist
• Recognize your fear of having a serious illness or disease is unreasonable but be unable to control your worry

Health anxiety / hypochondria is characterized by fear that minor bodily symptoms may indicate a serious illness, constant self-examination and self-diagnosis, and a preoccupation with one's body. You may live in a constant state of hypervigilance that you have or are about to have a serious health problem or illness. Often, hypochondria persists even after a physician has evaluated you and reassured you that your concerns about symptoms do not have an underlying medical basis or, if there is a medical illness, your concerns are far in excess of what is appropriate for the level of disease. 

If you have hypochondriasis, you are unable to control your fears and worries. You may believe any symptom or sensation is a sign of a serious illness. You may seek out reassurance from family, friends, or health care providers on a regular basis. You feel better for a short time, and then begin to worry about the same symptoms, or about new symptoms. You may focus on a specific symptom, such as gastrointestinal distress or heart palpitations, or your symptoms may shift and change. As you focus on and worry about physical sensations, a cycle of symptoms and worry begins, which can be difficult to stop.

Some people with hypochondria  experience elevated blood pressure, stress, and anxiety in the presence of doctors or medical facilities, a condition known as "white coat syndrome." Some people with health anxiety may completely avoid any reminder of illness, whereas others frequently visit doctors’ offices.

As with any health concerns, you should get a full medical examination by your physician. However, if you find that you are repeatedly having medical exams that result in no findings of a health problem and you still feel worried about your health, then you may be suffering from hypochondriasis or health anxiety. This form of anxiety is a combination of depressive rumination and obsessive-compulsive thinking. 

Cognitive behavioral therapy can help in the following ways: 

• Develop the motivation to modify your health anxiety (since you may falsely believe that your worry has prevented terrible things from happening)
• Learn how to distinguish between helpful worries and unproductive worries
• Learn how to accept uncertainty as an inevitable part of life
• Develop more realistic interpretations of your bodily sensations and worry about your health
• Avoid reassurance seeking, checking yourself and checking health information