A Reading Well: Books on Prescription Title. Health anxiety affects thousands of people in the UK and it can be effectively treated with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. This introductory booklet is aimed at those for whom health anxiety has become a serious problem. Written by experienced practitioners, it explains what health anxiety is and how it makes you feel. It will help the reader to understand their symptoms and is ideal as an immediate coping strategy and as a preliminary to fuller therapy. What health anxiety is and how it develops. Physical symptoms. How to spot and challenge thoughts that make you anxious. Reducing your focus on illness.