Overcoming Health Anxiety: A self-help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques

Stop worrying about your health and enjoy life.

Many of us have a tendency to worry unnecessarily about our health. This can be worse in a time of global panic about pandemics. For some, the anxiety becomes chronic, and they may spend many hours checking for symptoms, seeking reassurance from others, surfing the internet for information about different diseases, or repeatedly visiting the doctor. It is distressing for them and for everyone around them.

In fact, health anxiety can be very successfully treated with cognitive behavioural therapy - the approach taken in this self-help guide. Using a structured, step-by-step approach, the authors explain how the problem develops, how to recognise what feeds it and how to develop effective methods of dealing with it.

- Includes questionnaires, case studies and exercises
- Based on proven CBT techniques
- Includes a chapter on fear of death and fear of vomiting

David Veale is a consultant psychiatrist in CBT at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and the Priory Hospital, North London. He is a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London and is past President of the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies. He is the co-author of Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and several other books.

Rob Willson currently divides the majority of his work time between private practice and conducting research on Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. He is currently the chair of the BDD Foundation. Rob has written or co-authored several books, including the bestselling Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies and Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.