Published on 24 September 2026

Recently I had a consultation with a patient I've known for a while. She was diagnosed with asthma relatively late in life, but until now it has been well controlled with inhalers.

This time, she described in detail an attack she'd had at home, where she felt she was going to die. Fortunately, she had cortisone tablets on hand for when her inhaler wasn't enough — they probably saved her life.

As we talked, she connected this exacerbation to something deeper: she had been reflecting on her journey alongside her son's addiction to drugs. She'd been invited to share her story in a newspaper article, and it was only in writing down her reflections that she truly realised how hard that journey had been. That realisation, she believes, is what triggered her acute asthma attack.

Fortunately, I had the time that day to sit and listen — really listen — as she walked me through her son's addiction and his path through rehabilitation.

It took me back to medical school, where I remember a professor of medicine, a pulmonologist, stating quite firmly that there was no link between emotions and asthma exacerbations. In fairness, that was the early 1970s.

Our understanding of the mind-body relationship has come a long way since my medical school days. Yet this encounter reminded me that understanding the connection in theory and sitting with it in a real person are two different things.

I don't know precisely how my patient's emotional experience contributed to her asthma attack. What I do know is that taking the time to listen helped me see her illness, and her experience of it, in a wider context.