Health Anxiety and the Highly Sensitive Person: A Depth Psychotherapy Approach
If you’re a highly sensitive person (HSP), you may live with a body that feels louder than most. A flutter in the chest, a tight jaw, a strange ache—things others might brush off can feel overwhelming, even alarming. Your body notices everything. And when health anxiety is part of the picture, this sensitivity can spiral into constant worry and fear.
Health anxiety isn’t just occasional concern about being sick—it’s a loop of hyper-awareness and fear that something might be wrong, even when all signs say otherwise. And for HSPs, that loop can feel almost impossible to exit.
Why HSPs Are More Vulnerable to Health Anxiety
Living with heightened sensitivity means feeling more—more stimulation, more emotion, more internal shifts. This makes HSPs especially prone to health anxiety for a few reasons:
• You notice subtle changes in your body. What others might ignore, you can’t help but feel.
• You experience emotions deeply. A small sensation can quickly become an emotional wave of fear.
• You may carry early conditioning around illness or safety. Many HSPs grew up in households where illness was feared, where emotions weren’t fully supported, or where being attuned to danger became a form of survival.
• Your nervous system is often on high alert. Constant sensory input can keep your system activated, making it hard to calm down even when you’re “fine.”
When health anxiety takes hold, it’s not just in your head. It’s in your body, your thoughts, and your emotional world. It’s exhausting. And it deserves real care.
How Depth-Oriented Therapy Can Help
You don’t need someone to tell you you’re overreacting. You need a place to slow down, listen differently, and understand what your body is really trying to tell you.
That’s the work we do in therapy.
1. Listening to the Body Without Panic
In our work together, we’ll shift from fear to curiosity. What is this sensation connected to? What emotion might be underneath it? What else is happening in your life right now that could be adding to this feeling?
Symptoms are often trying to express something that words haven’t been able to. When we make space to listen, without jumping to worst-case scenarios, the body often begins to settle.
2. Understanding the Roots
Many HSPs with health anxiety have histories that shaped their relationship to the body. Maybe your symptoms weren’t believed. Or maybe you had to carry others’ emotional burdens so young that you learned to mistrust your own.
Therapy helps untangle those early experiences from what’s actually happening now, so you can begin to feel more grounded in the present.
3. Calming the Nervous System from the Inside Out
Rather than just using surface-level coping strategies, we’ll support deeper emotional regulation by building a relationship with your body and your inner world. We might explore imagery, body awareness, or guided reflections that help you feel more connected—and less afraid—of what arises inside.
4. Making Peace With Sensitivity
The goal isn’t to stop being sensitive. It’s to learn how to live with your sensitivity in a way that doesn’t feel like a threat. Your body isn’t the enemy—it’s asking for something. Together, we can learn how to respond with care, instead of fear.
You Can Learn to Trust Your Body Again
If you’ve been caught in the exhausting loop of health anxiety and you’re tired of managing it on your own, therapy can help.
I offer psychotherapy for highly sensitive people and empaths in Oakland and online across California.
My approach is warm, grounded, and deeply attuned to the emotional lives of sensitive souls. We’ll move at your pace. You’ll never be asked to override what you feel—we’ll work with it, gently, together.
Reach out if this speaks to you. You deserve support that honors your depth.