cover image Overcoming Health Anxiety: Letting Go of Your Fear of Illness

Overcoming Health Anxiety: Letting Go of Your Fear of Illness

Katherine M.B. Owens and Martin M. Antony. New Harbinger, $16.95 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-57224-838-0

The authors offer a guide based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for people who worry obsessively about their physical well-being, whether due to real and difficult-to-diagnose symptoms or imagined ones. Owens and Antony%E2%80%94Canadian academics and experts in anxiety reduction (Antony is coauthor of The Anti-Anxiety Workbook)%E2%80%94note that CBT is an established therapeutic technique that involves carefully and repeatedly analyzing, and thus repeatedly exposing oneself to, the negative thoughts that lie behind dysfunctional behavior; this continued exposure can help modify thought and behavior. The authors instruct readers on how to identify and change harmful thoughts and actions through short exercises. They also include a helpful section for family members and friends of the health-anxious. For example, Owens and Antony counsel against offering too much reassurance because they consider health anxiety a form of addiction and it just leads to further demands for reassurance. Also helpful are sections such as "Making the Most of Your [Doctor] Appointments" (bring a list of questions, take notes) and "Dealing with Stress," which discuss mindfulness and breathing techniques. Though the tone is dry and calls out for more anecdotal material, this remains a useful guide on a not-often-examined form of anxiety that can dominate people's lives. (July)