When Anxiety Makes You Fear Your Physical Symptoms
This client story is based on real therapeutic work. Identifying details have been changed to protect confidentiality.
When “David” came to work with me, he was in his late 70s and had been struggling with persistent tension headaches and uncomfortable sensations around his head and eyes. The physical sensations were only part of what he was experiencing. He had also become increasingly anxious about them.
As soon as David noticed pressure, tightness or pain, his attention would move towards it. He would monitor the sensation, wonder what it meant and check whether it was still there. The more he focused on what he was feeling, the harder it became to think about anything else. On his intake form, David rated the impact of the problem on his life at 10 out of 10. He was also experiencing anxiety, stress, sleep difficulties and grief.
David had a history of physical health concerns and continued to receive appropriate medical care from doctors and specialists throughout our work. My role was not to diagnose or medically treat the cause of his headaches. We were working with the anxiety, fear and emotional patterns surrounding what he was experiencing physically.
The Sensations Had Become Something to Fear
When a physical sensation begins to cause anxiety, the sensation itself can become only one part of the distress. A person notices pain, pressure, dizziness, palpitations, tingling or another change in the body. They begin wondering what it means. Their attention narrows, every variation is noticed and the body is repeatedly monitored for evidence that the sensation is still present. Over time, the fear of the symptom can become almost as consuming as the symptom itself.
This was an important part of David’s experience. When we explored what he wanted to gain from our work, he did not speak only about waking without pain or pressure. He also wanted to be free from the fear surrounding the sensations. As our work continued, we began to understand why this fear was not something we could approach in isolation. David had lived a long and complex life, and there were decades of experiences, beliefs and emotional responses sitting alongside the anxiety he had developed around his body.
He spoke about childhood trauma and long-standing beliefs that he needed to be good, responsible and meet other people’s expectations. Themes of guilt, self-punishment, performance and forgiveness emerged repeatedly in our sessions. Later in life, he had also experienced the devastating loss of a son and was carrying the grief associated with that loss. This did not mean that his physical symptoms were simply psychological. It showed us that his response to what he was feeling physically existed within a much wider emotional history.
Our work therefore involved more than trying to make a tension headache disappear. We needed to understand what happened inside David when the sensations appeared, what he believed they meant and why his attention felt compelled to return to them.
His Progress Began With Small Changes
Ten days after our first session, David began noticing that his experience was not always the same. There were occasions when he woke without the headache. At another point, pain appeared and then subsided. He was listening consistently to his personalised hypnosis recording and beginning to experience brief periods in which the usual pattern was interrupted. The symptoms had not disappeared.
By the following month, David was still experiencing sensations around his head every day. Yet alongside them were moments he later described as “glimpses of freedom.” He felt that the psychological side of our work was helping, even though the physical sensations remained varied and complex. His progress was gradual and uneven, but those glimpses showed us that his experience was capable of changing.
We continued building on them. Rather than measuring every session by whether the sensations had completely disappeared, we looked more closely at what happened when they arose.
What did David immediately think?
What did he fear?
What meaning did he attach to the sensation?
Why did his attention keep returning to his head and eyes?
At one point, I invited David to consider why part of him struggled to believe that he was okay or capable of healing. His beliefs about himself and his body had become an important part of the cycle.
We continued working with the guilt, fear and self-punishment that had appeared throughout his story. We also addressed his tendency to keep searching for evidence that something was wrong. Gradually, David began changing the questions he asked himself and directing more of his attention towards what he wanted to experience, rather than continually checking for pain.
The Small Changes Began to Accumulate
At first, David did not always recognise how much was changing because his progress had not arrived as one dramatic moment. It appeared in smaller ways. There were mornings without the usual headache. There were sensations that appeared and then subsided. There were moments when he could step back from what he was feeling instead of immediately becoming consumed by it.
Around 60 days into our work, David began to recognise that these smaller changes had accumulated into something significant. He thanked me because he could now see that he was experiencing himself differently. The physical sensations had not necessarily followed a simple, predictable path, but his relationship with them was changing.
By December 2025, sensations could still occasionally appear later in the day. However, my notes from that stage of our work captured an important difference in two brief observations:
“Not fearful.”
“More direction.”
For David, this was a meaningful shift.
When someone has spent a long time fearing a physical symptom, progress cannot always be measured solely by whether the body ever produces that sensation again. Sometimes the most significant change is that the sensation stops determining what happens next. You notice it without immediately spiralling. You feel something without spending hours monitoring it. Your attention becomes available for other parts of your life. David was developing that freedom. The sensations were losing their ability to control his thoughts, his attention and the rest of his day.
Changing Long-Standing Patterns in Your Late 70s
What makes David’s story particularly meaningful to me is that he was in his late 70s when we began working together. Some of the experiences and beliefs we explored reached back to his childhood. He had lived through significant grief and had spent years responding to himself and his body in particular ways. His age did not prevent him from developing a different response.
The change was gradual. There were still difficult days and his physical symptoms remained something he appropriately managed with his medical professionals. Yet by around 60 days, he could recognise a significant difference. By the later stages of our work, the fear surrounding the sensations had substantially reduced.
David’s story shows that even when a protective pattern has been present for decades, it is still possible to change your relationship with it.
Looking Beneath Anxiety About Physical Symptoms
Physical symptoms should always be appropriately assessed when necessary, and hypnotherapy is not a substitute for medical care. However, when someone has entered a cycle of fearing, monitoring and becoming consumed by physical sensations, there may also be emotional and psychological patterns worth exploring alongside that care. The symptom itself does not tell me everything I need to know about the person experiencing it. Two people can experience similar physical sensations but have very different fears, histories, beliefs and protective responses connected to them.
With David, the work involved exploring the anxiety surrounding his symptoms while also addressing long-standing beliefs, grief, unresolved emotional experiences and the fear attached to what he was feeling physically. The aim was not to persuade him to ignore his body. It was to help him respond to his body without immediately becoming consumed by fear. Gradually, that is what began to happen.
Looking for Help With Anxiety Around Physical Symptoms?
I am Julie Chal, a Rapid Transformational Therapist, anxiety specialist and Clinical Hypnotherapist based in Perth, Australia. I work with clients in Perth and online across Australia and internationally. My approach combines Rapid Transformational Therapy®, clinical hypnotherapy, conversational hypnosis and Somatic Trauma-Informed Coaching techniques. I adapt the work to the individual rather than assuming everyone experiencing anxiety around physical symptoms needs the same intervention.
If your physical symptoms have been medically assessed but you find yourself continually monitoring them, fearing them or struggling to focus on anything else when they appear, there may be an anxiety pattern worth exploring alongside your appropriate medical care.
My Tranceform Anxiety to Thrive program works with the deeper beliefs, emotional responses and subconscious patterns that may be contributing to the anxiety cycle.
The first step is a 50-minute Consultation Call, where we explore what you are experiencing, what may be contributing to it and whether my approach is appropriate for you.