Worry that is hard to switch off
Your mind repeatedly jumps ahead, searches for danger or rehearses what might go wrong.
Anxiety support
Online CBT for anxiety
Anxiety can leave you feeling worried, overwhelmed or constantly on edge. Whether it shows up as excessive worry, panic attacks, social anxiety or health anxiety, therapy can help you understand what is happening and feel more in control.
Understanding your experience
How anxiety can show up
Anxiety can affect thoughts, sleep, concentration, relationships and the body. It may show up as constant worry, panic, fear of particular situations or a sense that something bad is about to happen. You do not need to wait until it feels unbearable to ask for support.
Physical alarm
A racing heart, tight chest, dizziness, nausea, shaking or feeling constantly on edge.
Avoidance and reassurance
Avoiding situations, checking, over-preparing or repeatedly asking others if things are okay.
Sleep and concentration changes
Finding it difficult to settle, stay asleep or focus because your mind feels busy.
A practical way forward
How CBT can help with anxiety
CBT explores the cycle between thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and actions. Together, you and your therapist can identify what keeps anxiety going and test more helpful responses safely and gradually.
Map triggers and anxious patterns
Learn grounding and coping strategies
Reduce avoidance at a manageable pace
Build confidence through practical experiments
One label, different patterns
How the approach varies with the kind of anxiety
Generalised worry
Work often focuses on your relationship with uncertainty — noticing worry as a habit, postponing it deliberately, and reducing the reassurance-seeking and over-planning that keep it going.
Panic
Therapy maps the panic cycle — body sensations, catastrophic interpretations and safety behaviours — then uses gradual, planned experiments to test feared sensations and reduce avoidance.
Health anxiety
The focus is usually on where your attention goes and what you do with doubt: checking, scanning and seeking reassurance are reduced step by step while you practise living with uncertainty.
Social anxiety
Work centres on shifting attention away from self-monitoring, testing predictions about how you come across, and reducing avoidance and safety behaviours in social situations.
Getting started
What assessment and the first sessions involve
The first session is an assessment, not a test. Your therapist asks about what brings you, how anxiety shows up in your thoughts, body and behaviour, and what you want to be different. Together you build a shared map of what keeps the anxiety going, and early sessions start small, practical changes straight away.
Session one is an assessment
Your history, how anxiety affects you day to day, and what you would like to be different — at your pace, with nothing sprung on you.
A shared map of the problem
You and your therapist sketch the cycle between thoughts, physical sensations and the things anxiety makes you do or avoid.
Goals you agree together
Clear, realistic aims you can both check progress against, reviewed openly as you go.
Practice from the start
Small between-session tasks begin early — deliberately manageable, and adjusted if they prove too big.
Your questions
Frequently asked questions
Clear answers about starting online therapy for anxiety.
Quick answer
Yes — online CBT for anxiety is delivered by UK-registered therapists over secure video, and costs £68 for a 60-minute session with no subscription or GP referral. Sessions focus on the worry, panic and avoidance cycle, and you can usually start within days, including same-day slots at least 3 hours ahead.
Last reviewed by the Online CBT Counselling clinical team.
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Find The Right Therapist For YouTherapy is personal and outcomes vary. This service does not diagnose, guarantee outcomes or replace urgent mental health care.
