Overcoming hypochondria with hypnosis

You have all kinds of symptoms, such as itching, occasional stings here and there, and you think something is wrong. You looked up your symptoms on the Internet and now you're sure you might have a terminal illness. By now you have been to the family doctor and may have had blood tests. Those tests show that there is nothing wrong with you, yet you feel that something has been overlooked. By now the family doctor has already accused you of hypochondria, but what can you do with that?

In this article, I will discuss what hypochondria is and how hypnosis can help you properly distinguish between when to push a doctor to do what you want and when to really listen to him anyway.

There is, of course, a difference between feeling something once in a while and having it checked out and hypochondria. If you suffer from hypochondria, for some reason you have a lot of fear that you are seriously ill. So how do you know when you have hypochondria?

Symptoms of hypochondria

This makes you pay very close attention to your body. As a result, all day long you are concerned with what you are feeling and how your muscles and guts are behaving. You pay attention to itching, stings, cramps, headaches and dry mouth. If you suffer from this, you can get terrible anxiety which in turn causes other physical complaints such as,

Sweat
Vibrate
Dizziness
Heart palpitations
Tightness
Tingling limbs
Nausea and cramping (sometimes with diarrhea and vomiting)
Becoming Red
Fainting
Memory Loss
Feeling out of control or going crazy.

All of these symptoms actually only reinforce your anxiety as well which therefore does not help at all if you suffer from hypochondria. Also, people with hypochondria worry about a certain symptom which then only gets worse.

Notice that in addition to these symptoms, you can spend days on the Internet researching terminal illnesses? You find it difficult to focus on your work? And you also have trouble eating, due to anxiety? Then chances are very high that you suffer from hypochondria(1).

It is always good to see a doctor to check your health and actually ask for tests, but you have to trust the results of those tests. In the extreme emergency, you can always go to a private provider who will examine you physically all over, but if nothing comes out of that, you really have to trust that.

It's also not that someone with hypochondria wants to be sick; they mainly want to be sure they are not sick.

Unfortunately, this cycle of worrying and getting checked out is hard to break. Usually if you have a runny nose or a cough it is over within a week and all you have to do is wait, but of course that is very difficult if you think you have something serious.

Even if you know you have hypochondria, it can be difficult to ignore the anxiety. Every time you have a nasty cough you may think "but maybe now I do have something bad."

That's why it's important to break the cycle of fear and control so that you do have one time to wait a week or two to see if your cough goes away on its own.

Often people with hypochondria are given medication to suppress the feeling of anxiety, but of course that does not solve the problem. Therefore, people with hypochondria are also increasingly receiving therapy to better manage their fear of terminal illness(2).

In addition, hypochondria is not harmless. Because you are a "difficult" patient who usually has nothing wrong with you anyway, a really serious complaint can be overlooked. So it's really important to see your symptoms first before seeing a doctor, because most symptoms go away within a week.

Hypochondria treatment with hypnosis

There are a number of conditions that have characteristics of hypochondria, namely irritable bowel syndrome and fybromialgia. Of course, these are real disorders, but people who suffer from them often also have a lot of health anxiety. These disorders and fears are successfully treated with hypnotherapy(3).

One of the first things a therapist will want you to experience is that you are unconsciously making your symptoms worse. For example, if you have lost a pound once in a week when you don't feel you have done anything else, as someone with hypochondria, you may think there is something going on and therefore lose your appetite causing you to lose even more weight.

Similarly, there are other examples of unconscious behaviors reinforcing certain symptoms. For example, a hypnotherapist can help you figure out what those unconscious behaviors are for you. Perhaps you have a hidden ritual every time you have a physical complaint that you are not aware of.

In addition, something from your daily life can be a very logical explanation for a particular symptom. For example, if you have been stressed for a while, your immune system is weakened, making you more susceptible to the flu or a cold. A hypnotherapist can help you see if there may be other things going on in your life that could very well explain why you feel the way you do now and why you suffer from some of your physical symptoms.

Hypochondria cause

It is also important to determine the cause of hypochondria in order to come up with a good solution that involves more than giving insight into the behavior, but can actually give things a place and make it possible to address the cause.

In general, hypochondria can have the following causes:

A history of abuse.
Having been seriously ill as a child.
Expressing emotions poorly.
A parent or other family member who also suffers from hypochondria. In fact, children often copy behavior from their parents or others. As a result, it can also be seen as hereditary.

If you have difficulty determining the cause for hypochondria yourself, a hypnotherapist can help you through regression therapy to identify the life event that may have caused you to now suffer from severe fears of being terminally ill.

In addition, a similar event, such as being seriously ill as a child, may have created beliefs that now determine that you rush into stress if you cough once too often. By identifying those beliefs, the hypnotherapist can help you specifically change those beliefs. This can be done, for example, through cognitive behavioral therapy or neuro linguistic programming while you are under hypnosis.

If poor ability to express emotions is the cause of hypochondria, the hypnotherapist can help you identify those emotions and give you resources and tools to do deal with and express those emotions so that others understand you better.

In addition, hypnosis can help you have the thoughts you have when you have anxiety, without feeling anxious in the process. If you suffer from hypochondria, your imagination may run away with you, which in itself is not a bad thing. There are also people who can daydream for hours about future plans and the like, but if those fantasies make you anxious it is a problem.

Relaxation and anxiety is an impossible combination. That's why the hypnotherapist can help you first relax and then name your fears without immediately getting shaky and nauseous. This also allows you to look at your fears much more rationally and better assess how bad your fear actually is.

Another great exercise to do under hypnosis is visualization. If you suffer from hypochondria, there is actually nothing wrong with your imagination. How nice it would be if you could now gain control over that fantasy so that it does not give you unnecessary anxiety. Initially, the hypnotherapist can help you with such a visualization; it doesn't even have to be about your anxiety. Then you can be given exercises that you perform at home under self-hypnosis.

Self-hypnosis can also help at times when you do become anxious about a particular physical phenomenon. You can then repeat relaxation exercises until the fear subsides and repeat suggestions to yourself.

Another thing many people take away from others is "try not to think about it," but that is easier said than done. This is because fears and fantasies about the effects of the disease can go pretty far. Right down to dying and the reactions of loved ones, which is quite a lot to ignore. One technique to get rid of these is to paradoxically think about them while under hypnosis. Preferably in the presence of a hypnotherapist to get the execution right and not still panic .

There are also other techniques that the hypnotherapist can give you to calm down during a panic attack after a physical complaint and then determine whether you should do something with this, such as go to the doctor or whether you can wait it out quietly.

Want to learn more about hypnosis? Then come to the free online master class on hypnosis.

Also check out the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training courses and events.

Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:

hypochondria

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