Health Anxiety Therapy to Help You Reclaim Calm and Clarity
Health anxiety, sometimes known as hypochondria, involves excessive worrying about your health. You might constantly check symptoms, fear having a serious illness, or feel unable to believe medical reassurance. It can become an exhausting cycle of fear, self-monitoring and seeking reassurance—often without relief.
At Past 2 Present Counselling & Psychotherapy, we understand how consuming health anxiety can be. You're not imagining your worry, and you’re not being dramatic. It’s a very real experience that can be gently explored and addressed through therapy.
How Therapy Can Help with Health Anxiety
Health anxiety is often rooted in deeper fears—of loss, control, or not being safe in your body. Therapy provides a calm, confidential space where these fears can be unpacked without judgement. Together, we’ll explore your thoughts, physical responses and emotional triggers, allowing you to better understand and manage your anxiety.
Therapy for health anxiety can help you:
- Understand why certain symptoms trigger panic
- Break the cycle of obsessive checking or reassurance-seeking
- Challenge unhelpful thoughts with compassion
- Learn mindfulness and grounding techniques
- Rebuild trust in your body and mind
Therapy doesn’t try to “talk you out” of your fears. Instead, it helps you relate to those fears differently—so they lose their power over you.
Personalised Therapy That Works for You
Past 2 Present offers integrative therapy, meaning your sessions are tailored to you. We draw from a range of evidence-based approaches, including:
- Person-Centred Therapy – A gentle, non-directive way to explore your experiences
- Solution-Focused Counselling – Helping you create small, manageable changes
- Psychoeducation – Understanding how the body and brain respond to fear
- Mindfulness and Grounding Tools – Learning to be present and reduce spiralling thoughts
Sessions are available online, by telephone, or in person through Walk and Talk Therapy in Cornwall—whichever feels most supportive.
Common Signs of Health Anxiety
If you’re unsure whether you’re struggling with health anxiety, you might relate to some of the following:
- Constantly checking your body for signs of illness
- Googling symptoms and feeling worse afterwards
- Struggling to accept medical reassurance
- Avoiding places or situations for fear of getting sick
- Obsessively thinking about what might be wrong
You don’t have to face these fears alone. Therapy offers a space to pause, reflect and begin changing the pattern.
What’s Beneath Health Anxiety?
For many people, health anxiety isn’t just about illness—it’s about uncertainty, control, or past emotional experiences. You may have:
- Witnessed illness or loss in the past
- Experienced trauma or neglect
- Grown up in a fearful or hypervigilant environment
- Learned to focus on health as a way to manage stress or avoid pain
By working through the underlying stories behind your fears, therapy can help free you from the need to stay hyper-alert.
How Does This Affect You?
Living with health anxiety can feel like being trapped in your own mind. It drains your energy, damages your self-confidence, and affects relationships and daily life. But with therapeutic support, this pattern can change.
At Past 2 Present, you’ll find a calm, non-judgemental space where your experiences are taken seriously. Therapy can help you make peace with uncertainty, reconnect with the present, and focus on living—not just surviving.
Is health anxiety a real condition?
Yes. Health anxiety is recognised as a legitimate form of anxiety that affects many people in different ways.
What causes health anxiety?
It often stems from past trauma, loss, or anxiety around control and uncertainty. Therapy can help explore these links.
Can therapy cure health anxiety?
While there's no instant cure, therapy can significantly reduce your symptoms and help you build long-term tools for calm.
Do I need a diagnosis to start therapy?
No. You don’t need any official diagnosis to begin therapy—just a willingness to explore what’s going on for you.
Will I have to stop checking my body?
There’s no pressure to change overnight. Therapy helps you understand why you check and find gentler ways to manage fear.
Is online therapy helpful for health anxiety?
Yes. Many clients find online sessions especially helpful for talking openly from a space where they feel safe.