CONTENTS
(1) Recommended books
(2) An outline of the book "Overcoming Health Anxiety"
(3) An outline of the book "Helping Health Anxiety"
(4) Additional resources
(1) Recommended books
These two books are similar. The second one is available online for free.
Owen, K., & Antony, M. (2011). Overcoming health anxiety: Letting go of your fear of illness. New Harbinger. The introduction and Chapter 1 is available here.
Anderson, R., Saulsman, L., & Nathan, P. (2011). Helping Health Anxiety. Perth, Western Australia: Centre for Clinical Interventions. (Note: this is an online free workbook available on this website). Direct link to the workbook.
(2) An outline of the book "Overcoming Health Anxiety"
Reference: Owen, K., & Antony, M. (2011). Overcoming health anxiety: Letting go of your fear of illness. New Harbinger. The introduction and Chapter 1 is available here.
The major tasks of CBT for Health Anxiety: (1) Modifying anxious thinking, and (2) Modifying anxiety-driven behavior
(1) Modifying anxious thinking
(A) The role of automatic thoughts about sensations and situations in anxiety (p. 54)
(B) Recognizing types of biased thinking (p. 57)
(a) Over or under-estimating probabilities
(b) Catastrophic thinking
(c) Confirmation bias (and selective attention and selective memory)
(C) Identifying and recording thoughts using a thought record (p. 61)
(D) Challenging and modifying thoughts (p. 67)
(2) Modifying anxiety-driven behavior
(A) Recognizing safety behaviors (p. 77)
(B) Recognizing avoidance (of sensations, of situations, and of cognitions) (p78)
(C) Preventing safety behaviors (p. 81)
Form: Safety behavior tracking form
(D) Eliminating avoidance (exposure therapy) (p. 84)
Form: Exposure hierarchy
(E) Developing rational guidelines for seeking health care (p. 105-114)
(3) An outline of the book "Helping Health Anxiety"
Reference: Anderson, R., Saulsman, L., & Nathan, P. (2011). Helping Health Anxiety. Perth, Western Australia: Centre for Clinical Interventions. (Note: this is an online free workbook available on this website). Direct link to the workbook.
PART I: Understanding what maintains health anxiety
Module 1: Understanding health anxiety
Defining unhelpful and excessive health anxiety
Identifying the negative effect of health anxiety
Module 2: How health anxiety develops
Negative health experiences
Unhelpful health rules and assumptions
Increased sensitivity to potential threats to health
Module 3: What keeps health anxiety going?
Health anxiety triggers
Unhelpful health related thinking
Focusing on symptoms and worries
Checking and reassurance seeking behavior
Avoidance and safety behaviors
PART II: Modifying thoughts and behaviors
Module 4: Reducing your focus on health symptoms and worries
Modifying positive beliefs about focusing on health worries
Attention training
Postponing worrying
Module 5: Re-evaluating unhelpful health-related thinking (i.e., cognitive reappraisal)
Module 6: Reducing checking and reassurance seeking
Distinguishing helpful from unhelpful checking and reassurance seeking
Evaluating and modifying behavior
Module 7: Challenging avoidance and safety behaviors
Understanding how avoidance and safety behaviors maintain health anxiety
Reducing avoidance and unnecessary safety behaviors (i.e., exposure therapy)
Module 8: Adjusting health rules and assumptions (i.e., cognitive reappraisal, part 2)
Module 9: Healthy living and self-management planning
Summarizing and consolidating gains
(4) Additional resources
Acceptance & Commitment Group Therapy (ACT-G) for severe health anxiety [PDF]
Interoceptive exposure for health anxiety: https://beckinstitute.org/blog/health-anxiety-and-interoceptive-exposure