Lets overcome reassurance seeking!
Aims:
So, we know from the last page that reassurance seeking only makes your phobia worse in the long term. So we need to overcome this.
We do this by testing out these three ideas:
1) If I don’t get reassurance I might vomit.
2) I can’t tolerate not knowing what will happen.
3) It is the only way I can reduce my anxiety.
If these things are not true, then there is no need to reassurance seek.
How:
We can test these ideas out by facing situations in which we feel anxious and resist asking for reassurance. This way we get prove or disprove these three beliefs.
Step 1: A/B A/B Experiment:
The first thing we are going to do together is test out if reassurance seeking is helpful or not. We can do this by using something called an “A/B A/B experiment”. An A/B A/B experiment is a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) technique used to help someone understand the impact of behaviours on their emotions, thoughts and overall well-being. This technique involves comparing two different approaches (A and B) to see which one is more effective.
The approach we are going to take is to alternates between days where you try to get as much reassurance as you can (A) and days where you aim to ban the act of reassurance seeking (B). This helps us compare its effect on yourself.
To help with this I have created a chart you can use to record your progress.
Instructions:
Belief: Look at the three beliefs about reassurance seeking. Rate the strength of your belief on a scale from 0 to 100%, with 100% being I believe this totally.
Day 1 to Day 7: Alternate between days of excessive reassurance seeking and days of resisting reassurance seeking.
- Reassurance days: On days when you are allowed to reassurance seek you must try and do it excessively. Do it even more than normal and even about things you are not even anxious about. The purpose of engaging in excessive reassurance seeking on some days is to test the belief that "if reassurance seeking is helpful, then doing more of it should be even more helpful." By deliberately seeking reassurance excessively, you can observe the impact it has on your anxiety levels, thoughts about vomiting, and overall feelings of nausea. This allows you to gather evidence on whether reassurance seeking truly helps reduce your anxiety or if it might be reinforcing your fears.
- No reassurance days: Resisting reassurance seeking on the designated days is crucial for this experiment to work. Try your hardest to resist any form of reassurance seeking. If you really struggle with this, at least try to delay the reassurance or to reduce it as much as you can. But aim for zero is the best.
For each day rate:
Anxiety rating (0-10): Rate your general level of anxiety on a scale from 0 to 10.
How nauseous you feel (0-10): Rate how nauseous you feel on average for the day on a scale from 0 to 10.
How often you had thought about vomiting (0-10): Rate how often you have thoughts about vomiting on a scale from 0 to 10.
How at risk of vomiting you felt (0-10): Rate how at risk of vomiting you felt on a scale from 0 to 10.
Tips for the Week
- Its okay to feel anxious: You are trying something new, you may feel anxious at first when attempting to not seeking reassurance.
- Stay Consistent: Make sure to follow the alternating pattern of reassurance seeking and resisting it. Consistency is key to getting accurate results.
- Be Honest: Rate your anxiety, nausea, and thoughts about vomiting honestly. This will help you understand the true impact of reassurance seeking.
- Seek Support: If you find it challenging to resist reassurance seeking, consider seeking support from a therapist or a trusted person. They can help you stay on track and provide encouragement.
- Reflect Daily: Take a few minutes each day to reflect on your experiences and fill out the chart. This will help you gain insights into your behaviour and thoughts.
- Compare and Contrast: At the end of the week, compare the days you sought reassurance excessively with the days you resisted it. Look for patterns and differences in your anxiety levels and thoughts.
- Challenge Your Beliefs: Use the experiment to challenge the beliefs that drive your reassurance-seeking behaviour. Ask yourself if the outcomes matched your predictions and what this means for your need to seek reassurance.
Try the experiment for a week before continuing. Book mark the page and come back later!
See you soon!
One week later:
Hopefully you managed to do your experiment.
You may have learnt that reassurance-seeking may feel helpful in the moment but in the long term:
-It makes you feel more anxious.
-It causes you to have more thoughts about vomiting
And most importantly, in 99.99% of cases, the lack of reassurance seeking did not lead to vomiting.
If this is the case. Try to reduce reassurance seeking going forward.
The next step: Hyper-vigilance
Okay we are finished with reassurance seeking. Hopefully, this has helped you start to stand up to your Emetophobia. However, there is still work to do. The next section will be on “Hyper-vigilance”.
Ready for the next step: Hyper-vigilance
Coming soon
If you are still struggling with reassurance seeking, do not move on just yet. Keep reading on.
Not convinced about stopping reassurance seeking?
If you are not 100% convinced that reassurance seeking is not needed or that it is unhelpful, try the experiment for longer, or try proving it by making yourself a custom experiment.
The idea that reassurance seeking is helpful is easily testable. We can face a situation on purpose that we usually attempt to get reassurance about and resist that urge. Watch the results and see what happens.
For example:
Imagine someone who fears getting food poisoning and so usually asks for reassurance from their husband to make sure the dinner has been cooked properly. On some level they think this is helpful because it ensures their husband cooks dinner properly and prevents them from vomiting. To test this out they can design a simple experiment where they decide to eat dinner tonight without asking their partner any questions. After the dinner, they will know their answer. Did they get food poisoning or not? And with that outcome they can learn if they needed to get reassurance or not.
Designing and recording the experiment:
We need facts to stand up to our Emetophobia. So we need to design these experiments carefully to make the most of it. Click on the chart to download an editable PDF file to help you create the best experiment possible.
1) Firstly, you need to consider what is rationale behind your need for reassurance. This are often the idea that:
1) If I don’t get reassurance I might vomit.
2) I can’t tolerate not knowing what will happen.
3) It is the only way I can reduce my anxiety.
But feel free to add any other reasons to this.
2) Next you need to consider a way to test this out. Pick a situation that you normally get reassurance about and design an experiment to test the idea that you need to get reassurance (e.g. facing that situation without getting any reassurance).
3) Next you should add something called a feared prediction. This is what the anxiety is trying to convince you will go wrong without this reassurance. This overlaps highly with the first column but is more specific to the exact situation being tested.
Now do your experiment!
After the experiment:
4) Following the experiment, write down what occurred.
It is okay to feel anxious as you are trying something new. But focus on how well you coped through this feeling and most importantly reflect on if your fear actually occurred or not.
Reflect on what you have learnt from this. If your fear did not come true, what does that say about the need to get reassurance.
In the unlikely situation where your fear did occur. Focus on what you have learnt abut your ability to cope. And ask yourself, would the act of getting reassurance actually have changed the outcome?
Feel free to repeat the experiment a few times or to create different ones.
“I need more than self-help!”
If you feel you need to speak to a therapist to help you overcome your emetophobia. Look no further. Send me an email or book your first session today!
I am an emetophobia specialist and author of: