The Clinician's Guide to Treating Health Anxiety

Book excerpt: The Clinician's Guide to Treating Health Anxiety: Diagnosis, Mechanisms, and Effective Treatment provides mental health professionals with methods to better identify patients with health anxiety, the basic skills to manage it, and ways to successfully adapt cognitive behavioral therapy to treat it. The book features structured diagnostic instruments that can be used for assessment, while also underscoring the importance of conducting a comprehensive functional analysis of the patient's problems. Sections cover refinements in assessment and treatment methods and synthesize existing literature on etiology and maintenance mechanisms. Users will find an in-depth look at who develops health anxiety, what the behavioral and cognitive mechanisms that contribute to it are, why it persists in patients, and how it can be treated.