You’re smart, capable, and outwardly holding it all together - but inside, things feel increasingly unsustainable.
You’ve hit a point where stress, anxiety, or emotional exhaustion are no longer manageable with your usual coping strategies.
This isn’t about needing “more self-care.”
It’s about interrupting deeply ingrained patterns before they take a long-term toll.
I’m Dr Claire Plumbly, a clinical psychologist specialising in intensive trauma and burnout recovery for professionals who need deep, lasting change - delivered with clarity, efficiency, and psychological depth.
You’re smart, capable, and outwardly holding it all together - but inside, things feel increasingly unsustainable.
You’ve hit a point where stress, anxiety, or emotional exhaustion are no longer manageable with your usual coping strategies.
This isn’t about needing “more self-care.”
It’s about interrupting deeply ingrained patterns before they take a long-term toll.
I’m Dr Claire Plumbly, a clinical psychologist specialising in intensive trauma and burnout recovery for professionals who need deep, lasting change - delivered with clarity, efficiency, and psychological depth.
How Does EMDR Therapy Help Health Anxiety?
The emphasis in Eye Movement Desensitisation & Reprocessing (EMDR) is on identifying and updating old, unhelpful beliefs that originate from an upsetting incident in your past.
The mechanism of change is through bilateral stimulation - you can learn about the basics of EMDR on our EMDR Resources Page here.
Processing Health Anxiety Traumas with EMDR
EMDR is a particularly good approach when your fears are being fuelled by unresolved experiences, such as:
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a past illness scare
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bereavement
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witnessing illness in a parent or family member
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medical procedures
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a “first panic about symptoms” moment that stuck
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being unwell in the past,
Sometimes there are also traumas linked to being neglected, abused or uncared for as a child, this can increase anxiety generally and make the body feel like a scary place to inhabit which can increase hypervigilance around sensations.
The above is not an exhaustive list of the types of traumatic events that can be worked on with EMDR.
How EMDR for health anxiety works
In the assessment sessions you will cover your background, including health experiences and health anxiety symptoms. The EMDR therapist also supports you to learn skills to manage strong emotions so that you feel ready to do trauma processing.
Following these you and your therapist identify the triggers and target memories, if there are lots then we tend to start with the worst one, or the first one.. Once we know where to start with use the bilateral stimulation to update how the traumatic material is held in your nervous system. This should start to give you symptoms relief. It might be followed with preparation for feared events - such as finding something during body checking and feeling unable to cope.
This may be followed with an approach to overcoming the addictive nature of checking -behaviours, either through a further EMDR technique, or your therapist may recommend switching to another model of therapy like CBT to do this part.
FAQ About EMDR
for Health Anxiety
What if I've not been through a traumatic event?
In EMDR therapy part of the therapist's job is to get a full picture of your health anxiety in the context of the rest of your life experiences.
Often we discover events that happened in the past that might have been dismissed as important or misunderstood in terms of the level of impact. Many people we work with have been made to feel like they were 'making a fuss' or just had to get on with it. These are Little-T traumas that EMDR can be used on.
Can I do EMDR online?
Yes, EMDR for health anxiety can be carried out online - your therapist will teach you tools for doing the bilateral stimulation virtually. Evidence suggests that outcomes are comparable to in-person. More in this article here.
How many sessions will I need?
It is difficult to estimate before an assessment. But typically an case that isn't too complex we would recommend allowing around 10-12 sessions. For more complex or chronic difficulties then we recommend allowing for up to 24 sessions.
Can I do an EMDR Intensive for this?
Yes, we can work with you on a weekly basis or carry this out as an EMDR intensive if you want to reach your therapy goals more quickly. Read more about our EMDR intensive packages here.
Can EMDR help for a medical trauma?
Yes, this approach can work well for a single-event trauma like a medical trauma. We recommend waiting for at least a month following the event before commencing treatment though,