Understanding Reassurance Seeking and How It Fuels Anxiety
Living with anxiety or OCD can be incredibly challenging, especially when intrusive thoughts and constant worries take over your mind.
One common coping mechanism people turn to is reassurance seeking. While it may provide temporary relief, it often fuels anxiety in the long run.
In this blog post, we’ll explore what reassurance seeking is, why it’s problematic for anxiety and OCD recovery, and the different types of reassurance seeking.
What is Reassurance Seeking?
Reassurance seeking involves looking for confirmation or validation from others to alleviate anxiety or uncertainty. This can include repeatedly asking for assurances about health, safety, relationships, or morality.
While seeking reassurance might provide a brief sense of relief, it can quickly become a compulsive behavior that perpetuates anxiety.
Why is Reassurance Seeking Problematic?
Reassurance seeking is problematic because it reinforces the idea that the intrusive thoughts or worries are legitimate threats that need to be addressed. This can prevent you from learning to tolerate uncertainty and develop healthy coping mechanisms. Over time, reassurance seeking can become a crutch, making it harder to manage anxiety or OCD independently.
Types of reassurance traps
1. Do No Harm
This type of reassurance seeking involves looking for certainty that you are not a bad person. Intrusive harming thoughts can have violent, sexual, or embarrassing content.
For instance, you might find yourself always being careful to avoid accidental harm to yourself or others. Or you may have an overwhelming fear of offending God, leading you to constantly try to prove to yourself that you are in good grace.
2. Guarantees Forever
This type of reassurance seeking is about finding certainty that everything will be okay.
This could mean constantly seeking reassurance to prove you don’t have a serious illness by checking your pulse or temperature without any medical advice.
It could also involve needing to know if you are going to get fired by studying others' reactions and excessively asking colleagues if they think you are not performing well.
Additionally, it can mean needing to confirm your partner’s faithfulness by scanning their face, checking their phone and emails, and becoming upset if a text is not answered right away.
3. Banish All Doubts
This type of reassurance seeking involves trying to find answers to questions that are unanswerable. These might include questions like, “How can I be sure I’m really here on earth?”
Reassurance seeking can involve frequently asking friends or family to confirm your identity or reality, or seeking validation from online forums about your sexual orientation or mental health.
4. Don’t Mess Up
This type of reassurance seeking is driven by the fear of messing up, especially at work.
This can lead to endless checking of emails or working excessively to avoid imperfections. It can also involve doing extensive research and planning for a simple purchase to ensure you make the perfect decision.
Reassurance seeking can look like spending hours drafting and redrafting a simple email to avoid any potential errors or researching for days before making a minor purchase decision.
How State of Mind Therapy Can Help with Reassurance Seeking
If you struggle with anxiety and reassurance seeking, know that you are not alone. At State of Mind Therapy, we specialize in helping individuals break free from the cycle of anxiety and find peace.
Our experienced therapists use evidence-based strategies to address the root causes of your anxiety and develop healthier coping mechanisms.
Ready to get started? Schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation with one of our therapists today to take the first step towards a calmer, more confident you.