Health anxiety can be one of the most challenging presentations clinicians face — persistent, distressing, and often resistant to reassurance.

Clients may present with constant symptom checking, repeated medical visits, catastrophic thinking, and an inability to tolerate uncertainty — even when medical evaluations are normal. Without the right approach, it’s easy for therapy to unintentionally reinforce the cycle.

In this practical, skills-focused webinar, Diane Bigler, LCSW will walk you through evidence-based strategies to help clients reduce fear, disengage from reassurance-seeking behaviors, and build tolerance for uncertainty while maintaining a strong therapeutic alliance.

Why Attend This Webinar

Health anxiety isn’t just “worry” — it’s a self-reinforcing cycle driven by cognitive distortions, behavioral patterns, and heightened sensitivity to bodily sensations.

As highlighted in the training, clients often:
▶️ Misinterpret normal sensations as signs of serious illness
▶️ Engage in reassurance-seeking that temporarily reduces anxiety—but strengthens it long-term
▶️ Avoid activities or situations that trigger physical sensations
▶️ Struggle with persistent fear despite negative medical results

This webinar will give you clear, structured interventions you can use immediately in session to interrupt that cycle and help clients regain a sense of control.

What You’ll Learn

In this webinar, you’ll learn how to:
✅ Identify the key features and maintaining factors of health anxiety
✅ Recognize reassurance-seeking, avoidance, and symptom-checking patterns
✅ Use cognitive restructuring to address catastrophic health beliefs
✅ Apply response prevention techniques to reduce reassurance-seeking
✅ Implement interoceptive and situational exposure safely and effectively
✅ Teach mindfulness and body awareness to reduce symptom reactivity
✅ Help clients build tolerance for uncertainty without escalating anxiety

Clinical Strategies You Can Use Immediately

This isn’t theory-heavy — it’s built around real clinical application, including:
➡️ How to respond to reassurance-seeking without reinforcing it
➡️ Scripts for challenging catastrophic thinking in session
➡️ Step-by-step exposure strategies for feared sensations (like increased heart rate)
➡️ Practical ways to introduce mindfulness without increasing hypervigilance
➡️ Techniques to shift clients from fear-driven behaviors to values-based action

You’ll also see how to integrate approaches like:
✦ Cognitive restructuring
✦ Behavioral experiments
✦ Distress tolerance
✦ Self-compassion and psychological flexibility

Case-Based Learning

The training includes a detailed case example of a client with escalating health anxiety, illustrating:
✦ Reassurance-seeking cycles
✦ Avoidance of normal activities
✦ Misinterpretation of physical symptoms
✦ Functional impairment in daily life

You’ll learn how to apply interventions step-by-step to similar presentations in your own practice.