Health Anxiety : and How it Presents in Both Therapeutic and Healthcare Settings
Online Learning Programme
Understanding and Supporting Health Anxiety
This training offers a practical, compassionate exploration of health anxiety in therapeutic and healthcare settings.
It examines health anxiety through a whole-person, trauma-informed lens, considering thoughts, behaviours, experiences, the body and nervous system.
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Programme Type: CPD workshop (certificate of attendance)
CPD: 6 hours
Next Intake(s): 22nd November 2026
NFQ: N/A
ECTS: N/A
Academic Validation: N/A
Professional Accreditation: N/A
Overview
Introduction
Health concerns are a normal part of life, but when worry about health becomes persistent, overwhelming or difficult to reassure, it can have a significant impact on a person’s wellbeing, relationships and daily functioning.
This training, facilitated by Michelle Flynn, IACP-accredited Psychotherapist and Clinical Supervisor, provides a practical and compassionate exploration of health anxiety and how it presents in both therapeutic and healthcare settings.
Drawing on Michelle’s experience in trauma-informed, cognitive and somatic psychotherapy, the training will explore health anxiety through a whole-person lens. Rather than focusing solely on anxious thoughts, participants will consider the interplay between thoughts, behaviours, previous experiences, the body and the nervous system.
Particular attention will be given to understanding the relationship between health anxiety and trauma, including how experiences of illness, medical procedures, loss, frightening diagnoses or other traumatic experiences can contribute to a heightened sense of threat within the body.
Participants will explore how to recognise and screen for health anxiety, differentiate health anxiety from appropriate concern about physical symptoms, and develop practical strategies for supporting clients within the therapy room.
A key focus of the training will be integrating top-down and bottom-up approaches — working with thoughts, beliefs and behaviours while also understanding and supporting nervous-system regulation and the body’s response to perceived threat.
Who Should Apply
This training is suitable for mental health and healthcare professionals who encounter health-related anxiety in their work, including psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists and other mental health practitioners, as well as medical and healthcare professionals.
It is also suitable for students and anyone with a professional interest in developing a deeper understanding of health anxiety, trauma and the mind-body connection.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this training, participants will have a greater understanding of:
• What health anxiety is and how it can present clinically.
• The difference between normal health-related worry and problematic health anxiety.
• How to screen and assess for health anxiety.
• The common cycles that maintain health anxiety, including body scanning, reassurance seeking, checking, avoidance and online symptom searching.
• The relationship between health anxiety, trauma and the nervous system.
• How previous medical experiences, illness, loss and other traumatic experiences may contribute to health-related fear.
• How to work therapeutically with health anxiety without inadvertently reinforcing reassurance-seeking behaviours.
• How to use top-down approaches, including cognitive and behavioural interventions.
• How to incorporate bottom-up and somatic approaches to support regulation and increase a person’s capacity to experience bodily sensations without immediately interpreting them as danger.
• Practical interventions and strategies that can be brought directly into clinical practice.
Date
22nd November 2026
Cost
€95.00. (15% discount for IICP College students/alumni and VCS counsellors)
Venue
This workshop will take place online.
Programme Lecturer
Michelle Flynn
Michelle Flynn is a fully qualified, IACP-accredited Psychotherapist and Clinical Supervisor, and founder of An Croí Beag Psychotherapy. Her professional interests include perinatal mental health, trauma, and the relationship between psychological wellbeing and the nervous system.
She holds a Master’s in Counselling and Psychotherapy, a Higher Diploma in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, and a Level 9 Certificate in Perinatal Mental Health, with additional training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and trauma-informed psychotherapy. She is currently completing specialist training in Somatic Experiencing with Somatic Experiencing Ireland.
Working integratively and from a trauma-informed perspective, Michelle supports people experiencing anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, life transitions and trauma. Her approach considers both mind and body, combining top-down methods focused on thoughts, beliefs and meaning with bottom-up approaches that attend to the body, nervous system and physiological responses to stress and trauma.
Alongside her clinical practice, Michelle has extensive experience in education, training and public speaking. She has lectured on a professional psychotherapy training programme and speaks on perinatal mental health, birth and reproductive trauma, trauma-informed care and somatic psychotherapy. She is also a regular contributor on Live Radio, offering psychological perspectives on relationships, mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Her previous experience includes managing a team of psychotherapists within a low-cost, community-based family therapy service, and working with children, young people and parents in school and community settings in Ireland and the UK. Across her clinical, supervisory, teaching and media work, Michelle is committed to making psychotherapy accessible, compassionate and grounded in the whole person — mind, body, relationships and lived experience.
