(HS Ham 150878 2026) When Health Anxiety and Chronic Illness Overlap: CBT and ACT Interventions to Reduce Distress Despite...

Course overview

Of course, clients with chronic pain or chronic illness, or who have experienced medical trauma, live with real, ongoing symptoms and legitimate health concerns - But many also have health anxiety that can worsen distress. You're left wondering -- how much worry, preoccupation, and vigilance is expected in this case, and how much might be disordered anxiety that I should be treating? And how do I talk about health anxiety with my clients without minimizing their lived experience? In this session, Taylor Ham -- author of The Health Anxiety Workbook -- will give you the tools you need to differentiate expected anxiety in the context of chronic illness from illness anxiety disorder and somatic symptom disorder and then treat it. You'll learn: CBT and ACT interventions to reduce fear-driven behaviors, tolerate uncertainty, and engage with life despite ongoing pain and medical symptoms A framework to avoid both overpathologizing and unintentionally reinforcing clients' anxiety How to helpfully respond when medically complex, anxious clients seek reassurance or hyperfocus on their symptoms