Overcoming Health Anxiety 2nd Edition

How you can stop worrying about your health and enjoy life


'This book not only helps sufferers to better understand the nature of the problem, but also provides them with the skills necessary to overcome it and to regain quality of life'
Professor Paul Salkovskis, Professor of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford

Many of us have a tendency to worry unnecessarily about our health. For some the anxiety becomes severe and persistent. This can involve spending 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 (CBT) - 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. This book includes:
- Questionnaires, case studies and exercises
- Chapters on fear of death and on medication

ROB WILLSON is a cognitive behaviour therapist in private practice with over twenty-five years' experience. He has a special interest in anxiety and obsessional problems, including health anxiety. DAVID VEALE is a consultant psychiatrist in cognitive behavioural therapies at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and a visiting professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London.


Overcoming self-help guides use clinically proven techniques to treat long-standing and disabling conditions, boith psychological and physical.

READING WELL
This book is recommended by the national Reading Well scheme for England and Wales delivered by The Reading Agency and the Society of Chief Librarians with funding from Arts Council England and Wellcome.
www.reading-well.org.uk


Series Editor: Emeritus Professor Peter Cooper