Searching for the thing we fear can perpetuate problem anxiety attacks when it results in unnecessary fear. This can arise either because it increases the likelihood of seeing, feeling or hearing something scary, or because one experiences false alarms. A person who did not fear spiders would probably walk into a room without noticing cobwebs, dusty corners or even spiders. When the spider-phobic person entered the same room, not a single web, corner or crawling creature would go unobserved, thereby arousing fear.

Similarly, someone without health fears could tolerate aches, pains and minor discomforts without giving them too much notice, while the person with health fears would notice exactly the same physical sensations, dwell on them and start to worry that a serious illness was imminent.

A false alarm for someone with a spider phobia might be mistaking fluff on the carpet for a spider or a crack in the wall for a web, while a frightening misinterpretation for a person with health fears would be finding a perfectly benign swelling and presuming this was a malignancy. Both would trigger unjustified, but very real, sensations of fright and anxiety attacks.