Health anxiety and the self-concept: a person-centered/experiential study

ABSTRACT Person-centered therapy conceptualizes anxiety as occurring when an individual perceives incongruence within themselves, so better understanding the self-concept of anxious individuals can help us understand this incongruence. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three health anxious white British women which were then subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. This produced three master themes. The first, ‘living with health anxiety’, explored the experience of being health anxious: on the one hand identifying as a worrier and on the other hand having reason to be afraid. The second, ‘questioning health anxiety’, demonstrated an aspect of self that wished to transcend the confines of health anxiety by rejecting or interrogating it. The third, ‘anxiety among others’, drew attention to the interpersonal aspects of life with health anxiety. These results are applied to existing person-centered, focusing-oriented and emotion-focused therapy theories. Future research directions are suggested, and clinical implications are given.