Help with health anxiety
Health anxiety is not hypochondria and it is not attention-seeking. It is a threat system that has locked onto the one thing you can never fully rule out.
The reassurance trap
Every scan, every search, every 'it's probably nothing' from a GP buys a few hours of relief and then strengthens the loop. The brain learns that certainty is obtainable, so it demands more of it. Treatment therefore does not try to prove you are healthy — it changes your relationship to uncertainty.
- Repeated body-scanning for symptoms
- Searching symptoms online then feeling worse
- Needing reassurance from partners or GPs
- Avoiding appointments in case of bad news
What the work involves
We reduce the checking behaviours gradually rather than banning them, use hypnosis to lower baseline arousal so ordinary body sensations stop reading as danger, and — where a bereavement or medical event triggered it — process that event directly so it stops fuelling the vigilance.
Working alongside your GP
This is not a replacement for medical care and never contradicts it. Investigations already underway continue. What changes is that the results stop being the only thing holding you together.
Common questions
What if something really is wrong?+
Then medical care handles it. Therapy addresses the disproportion between the risk and the response — it never tells you to ignore symptoms.
Does hypnotherapy help health anxiety?+
Yes. Lowering baseline arousal reduces how loudly the body speaks, which is often the fastest visible change.
Is this the same as OCD?+
There is overlap in the checking and reassurance cycle, and the treatment logic is related, but they are handled as distinct patterns.
Stop negotiating with certainty
Fifteen minutes on the phone, free, to see whether this is the right room for it.