Online Health Anxiety Therapy (UK-wide)
Reduce checking and worry; build confidence and flexibility

 

 

Online therapy for health anxiety across the UK using CBT/ACT. We’ll map your worry loops and safety behaviours (checking, reassurance, scanning), then use evidence-based cognitive behaviour therapy to shrink health preoccupation and improve your ability to focus more on the things that matter to you in your work, relationships, and personal life.

£125 / 60 mins appointment, via secure video

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What is Health Anxiety?

Health anxiety often involves a pattern of misinterpreting normal or benign bodily sensations as signs of serious disease, followed by reassurance-seeking and checking (self-exams, internet searches, GP visits, tests, asking others). These behaviours often reduce anxiety in the short-term but sensitise attention to threat and increase doubt over time. that can become debilitating.

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What it looks like...

• Checking the body for signs of illness, such as lumps, tingles, asymmetry, moles, heart rate, bowel changes.

• Repeated GP visits/tests despite “all clear” results.

• Endless symptom Googling and forum trawling.

• Reassurance seeking from partners/ friends & family (“Are you sure this isn’t…?”).

• Avoidance of exercise/sex/travel in case it “triggers something.”

• Brief relief after a check, then the fear returns—often about a new disease.

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Why it keeps you stuck (the reassurance cycle)

Short-term checking and reassurance reduce our tolerance for uncertainty, leading to cycles of checking and reassurance seeking to manage uncertainty when anxiety provoking thoughts show up.  Paradoxically, the more we try to achieve total certainty the worse our anxiety tends to become.  Attention narrows, sensations amplify, and uncertainty becomes intolerable.
Our aim: break the cycle, improve tolerance for uncertainty, and rebuild a life not organised around physical sensations.

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Online Therapy for Health Anxiety

​Evidence-based treatment involves a cognitive behavioural approach, utilising exposure/response prevention to reduce avoidance of uncertainty (dropping reassurance and checking in response to anxiety provoking thoughts) alongside gaining new skills to help improve tolerance of bodily sensations and redirect behaviour instead toward importance aspects of your life, which are often negatively impacted by health anxiety.

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How online treatment works:

1. Assessment & formulation – understanding triggers, beliefs, & behaviours keeping anxiety going.

2. Cognitive behavioural therapy - working with the unwanted and anxiety provoking thoughts and distressing feelings, through a graded plan to reduce their impact, and to increase your ability to face uncertainty without checking behaviours and unhelpful reassurance seeking, before and reorienting you back towards more workable behaviours that help you get more out of your work, relationships, and personal life.

3. Relapse prevention – a clear plan for blips.

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What changes; typically clients experience...

• Reduction in googling, checking, reassurance seeking - such as “just to be safe” tests at the GP.

• Reduced impact of anxiety and increased ability to respond effectively to uncertainly and uncomfortable thoughts and feelings

• Increased ability to carry uncertainty without spiralling.

• Re-engagement with normal activities

• Progress measured by being able to actively re-engage with life, not by “never noticing sensations.”

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Fees & logistics

• Individual therapy: £125 per 60-minute session

• Location: Stourbridge (West Midlands) & online across the UK

• Availability: Daytime and limited early evenings

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FAQs

• Should I stop seeing my GP?
  No. We create clear criteria for appropriate medical checks (e.g., new, persistent, function-impacting symptoms). Therapy targets excess checking and reassurance, not sensible healthcare.

• What if the symptoms are real?
  Sometimes they are. We plan for both realities: (1) when it’s benign, you follow the therapy rules; (2) when red-flag criteria are met, you seek care. Either way, you don’t need compulsive reassurance.

• Is this the same as OCD?
  There’s overlap. Many people with health anxiety use OCD-like compulsions (checking, mental review, reassurance). The treatment principles are similar: A cognitive behavioural approach, including exposure + response prevention

• How long does therapy take?
  Many clients see functional gains in 12 sessions. Long-standing or complex presentations may take longer. We’ll tailor frequency to progress and goals.

 

Next Steps:

Book an appointment online, using the link below

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​If you would prefer a face-to-face appointment, or enquire about availability for in-person appointments in Stourbridge.

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