Health Anxiety Disorder
What is it?
If you, or your child, worries about getting serious illness and repeatedly seeks reassurance by looking up medical information, talking to others or are so afraid you avoid medical settings, then you might have an illness anxiety disorder.
How we treat it?
Successful treatment uses cognitive behavior, exposure therapy, inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy, positive focus and gratitude training and medication. Treatment involves learning to identify when to seek medical intervention and when to wait, how to develop a hopeful peaceful mind that can resist getting stuck on the worst-case scenario and learning to tolerate uncertainty without resorting to reassurance seeking and checking.
