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Daily Mail - urgent comment from psychologist

ended 20. October 2021

A journalist at the Daily Mail is seeking quick reaction (deadline is ultra-tight) from a psychologist or psychotherapist on why being curious about morbidity can actually be good for a person with anxiety. Or perhaps it isn't at all? What are your thoughts? Just a few lines will do!

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Dr Marianne Trent
Clinical Psychologist at Good Thinking Psychology
"Fears about death, dying and illness can be really common in people with health anxiety. There is, of course, one certainty for everyone who is born and that is that they will, one day, die. People with anxiety can find the uncertainty and unpredictability of this highly stressful. It can preoccupy many thoughts and lead to a variety of obsessive rituals and behaviours. "Learning to tolerate the distress of an uncertain life path and an uncertain cause of death at an unspecified time can paradoxically be useful for those looking to enjoy actually living in the moment a bit more. "Like any compulsive thought, it is helpful to think about what meaning we take and what behaviour we make as a result of our impulsive thoughts. Sometimes it is a great shift just to be able to recognise and notice the thought, then tolerate it and not act upon it."