Why Reassurance Feels So Good BUT Helps So Little

Have you ever noticed yourself asking a question when you are not really looking for information?

“Do you think I’ve upset them?”

“Are you sure this is nothing to worry about?”

“Do you think I made the right decision?”

“Was that email okay?”

“Do you think everything will be alright?”

Often, what we are really asking is: Can you help me feel certain enough that I can stop worrying about this?

When someone we trust tells us that everything is probably fine, it can feel enormously relieving.

There is nothing unusual about this. We are relational beings. When we feel uncertain, frightened or overwhelmed, we naturally look to other people for perspective, comfort and reassurance. But when anxiety is driving the question, something slightly different can happen.

We are no longer only looking for comfort. We are asking another person to help us remove uncertainty.

That can become a surprisingly powerful anxiety cycle.

Why reassurance works so well

Anxiety is particularly uncomfortable with uncertainty.

You might notice a strange physical sensation and wonder whether something is wrong. Your partner seems quieter than usual and you wonder whether they are upset with you. Your child is struggling and you worry that you have made the wrong parenting decision. You send something important at work and suddenly wonder whether you have made a mistake. Your mind starts looking for an answer, so you ask someone.

They reassure you.

And almost immediately, the tension drops.

When reassurance repeatedly removes distress, our brain can learn that the uncertainty itself was something we needed to escape from.

So, the next time that uncomfortable feeling appears, the urge to seek reassurance becomes even more compelling.

Excessive reassurance seeking has been identified across generalised anxiety disorder, social anxiety, panic disorder and OCD. In a clinical study of 738 people receiving Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, reductions in reassurance seeking were associated with improvements in anxiety symptoms.

More recent clinical models conceptualise excessive reassurance seeking as a safety behaviour: something we do to reduce a perceived threat that provides relief in the short term but can prevent us from developing confidence in our own capacity to tolerate uncertainty.

Reassurance seeking can be difficult to spot

Sometimes reassurance is obvious, but often it is woven into everyday behaviour:

• You might ask your partner several different versions of the same question.

• You might Google a symptom, feel relieved, then search again twenty minutes later because another possibility has occurred to you.

• You might ask several friends for their opinion before making a decision.

• You might repeatedly check your work before submitting it.

• You might replay a conversation in your head, looking for evidence that you didn't say anything wrong.

• You might monitor your child's behaviour after making a parenting decision, looking for signs that they are definitely okay.

This is why, in therapy, we are often less interested in whether someone seeks reassurance and more curious about what the reassurance is doing for them.

The deeper issue is often our relationship with feeling uncertainty.

There is now substantial research examining what psychologists call intolerance of uncertainty, which is essentially the difficulty we can have emotionally and cognitively when we don't know what is going to happen.

A 2023 meta analysis of 28 randomised controlled trials found that psychological treatments targeting intolerance of uncertainty produced large improvements in people's capacity to manage uncertainty, and these improvements were associated with reductions in anxiety symptoms.

Another 2023 systematic review involving 1,199 people with generalised anxiety disorder found substantial improvements in both intolerance of uncertainty and worry following psychological treatment. This gives us an important clue about what helps. The answer isn't necessarily finding better reassurance. It is gradually becoming more able to live with the fact that we cannot always know.

Therapy isn't designed to simply take reassurance away

If someone has spent years managing anxiety by checking, researching, preparing, asking others or seeking certainty, simply telling them to “stop seeking reassurance” can feel incredibly invalidating.

Those behaviours developed for a reason, at some point, they were helpful.

Good therapy approaches with curiosity rather than judgement.

At The Self Centre, our psychologists often help people slow the pattern down enough to understand it. We ask questions such as:

• What happens just before you need reassurance?

• What are you afraid might happen?

• What does reassurance give you?

• How long does the relief last?

• And what feels difficult about allowing the question to remain unanswered?

From there, therapy can help you gradually experiment with responding differently.

That might mean noticing the urge to ask again and waiting a little longer, or allowing an uncomfortable thought to remain unfinished.

Learning to distinguish a problem that genuinely needs solving from an anxious question that cannot be solved with certainty. Or even recognising that what you actually need in that moment isn't an answer at all.

Perhaps you need someone beside you while something feels difficult.

Support without certainty

Therapy is not about becoming fiercely independent or learning that you shouldn't need other people. Quite the opposite. Being comforted, understood and accompanied when we are distressed is an important part of human relationships.

The shift is from:

“Tell me that nothing bad will happen.”

towards:

“I don't know what will happen, and I'd like some support while I sit with that.”

We are no longer trying to convince the nervous system that uncertainty has disappeared. We are helping it learn that uncertainty can be present and we can still cope.

And that learning builds over time.

Eventually, the question “What if?” may still appear:

But instead of urgently needing an answer, there can be a little more space around it.

“I don't know.”

“I wish I did.”

“But I can tolerate not knowing this right now.”

For many people with anxiety, that is where safety begins.

If anxiety, worry, checking or reassurance seeking is becoming exhausting, our psychologists at The Self Centre can help people understand what is keeping the cycle going and find a more sustainable way of responding.

References

Halldorsson, B., & Salkovskis, P. M. (2023). Reassurance and its alternatives: Overview and cognitive behavioural conceptualisation. Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders, 36, 100783.

Miller, M. L., & McGuire, J. F. (2023). Targeting intolerance of uncertainty in treatment: A meta analysis of therapeutic effects, treatment moderators, and underlying mechanisms. Journal of Affective Disorders, 341, 283 to 295.

Rector, N. A., Katz, D. E., Quilty, L. C., Laposa, J. M., Collimore, K., & Kay, T. (2019). Reassurance seeking in the anxiety disorders and OCD: Construct validation, clinical correlates and CBT treatment response. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 67, 102109.

Sahib, A., Chen, J., Cárdenas, D., & Calear, A. L. (2023). Intolerance of uncertainty and emotion regulation: A meta analytic and systematic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 101, 102270.

Wilson, E. J., Abbott, M. J., & Norton, A. R. (2023). The impact of psychological treatment on intolerance of uncertainty in generalized anxiety disorder: A systematic review and meta analysis. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 97, 102729.

AI disclosure: AI was used to assist with drafting and editing this article. The content was reviewed, changed and approved by The Self Centre to ensure clinical accuracy and alignment with current psychological evidence.