Health Anxiety (Episode 017)
Disordered: Anxiety Help
Josh Fletcher and Drew Linsalata
4.9 • 665 Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2023
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Disordered, Drew and Josh tackle the topic of health anxiety. Health anxiety is an obsession with one's physical or mental health that drives a continuous series of compulsions designed to soothe the fear, uncertainty, and worry about well-being and safety.
The episode covers intolerance of uncertainty, repetitive compulsive checking and seeking of reassurance, and how leaning into probability and reality rather than fear is the way out. As usual, the guys share some of their own personal struggles with health anxiety, along with a healthy serving of compassion, humor, and professional expertise.
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Disclaimer: Disordered is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to Disordered does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the hosts of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know you've got health anxiety when a headache becomes a brain tumor. |
| 0:07.0 | I find that health anxiety in the work that you and I do like on social media in that community |
| 0:12.0 | is the most stubborn thing I come across on the daily. |
| 0:17.0 | It's an instantaneous engagement with a health crisis that may or may not actually exist. |
| 0:21.6 | Health anxiety is often an obsession. |
| 0:24.6 | The health anxiety will answer, yeah, but the odds aren't zero. |
| 0:28.6 | And if the odds aren't zero, health anxiety, nope, uh-uh, got to stay involved with this. |
| 0:33.6 | When the doctor says you're fine, and then you go home and you start the cycle again, |
| 0:39.3 | so that I can feel like I have the illusion of a hundred percent certainty that I am okay. |
| 0:45.3 | Well, the doctor said you're okay. |
| 0:46.6 | Yeah, well, if you could believe that, you would have not gone to the 10th doctor. |
| 0:51.9 | Welcome to Disordered. |
| 0:53.1 | This is episode 17 entitled Health Anxiety. Short and sweet, it says it. |
| 0:58.0 | I am Drew Lin Salata, co-host of Disordered. I am a graduate student in clinical mental health counseling and a therapist in training in the United States, New York, specifically. |
| 1:06.0 | And I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety disorders based in the UK. |
| 1:14.3 | Hey, Josh. |
| 1:15.0 | Welcome back. |
| 1:16.9 | Hi, Drew. |
| 1:17.6 | How you doing? |
| 1:18.5 | This is a topic that we often get asked about. |
| 1:22.4 | Oh, yeah. |
| 1:23.2 | Daily. |
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