Bronchial Asthma or Panic Attack?

Christina has bronchial asthma – so she said at the first consultation. Asthma attacks occur regularly, usually occur in stressful situations, and greatly reduce the quality of life. Strictly speaking, this is not quite an asthma, as the old doctor told Christine – not the same clinical picture. But asthma was more understandable, and this particular diagnosis is indicated in her health records.

Christina remembered the very first such episode – she was 11 years old. Her parents were in the pre-divorce phase, and the situation was psychologically unsafe. One evening, Christina heard her parents fighting and found out that dad was going to leave. He took out his suitcase and began to pack his things. Christina had her first attack – she began to choke. The parents got scared, they called an ambulance, they gave her an injection and everything went away. Dad did not think about any suitcase for a long time.

And the next time, when the parents began to quarrel, the situation repeated itself. And then before the exams … And now, for example, when her boss commented on her incorrectly drawn up report.

What happened? Against the background of stress, Christina had a panic attack, which, by coincidence, helped prevent what Christina was very afraid of – the departure of her dad. Our psyche is unique. The body “memorized” the desired reaction and began to issue it every time in a stressful situation. The secondary benefit was obvious, though not easy to recognize, and Christina fiercely defended her symptom.

We did not work with the symptom, but with Christina herself. The symptom was cunning: it hid and resisted in every possible way. Once Christina became ill right at the consultation – this was the starting point for understanding how the secondary benefit works. After all, Christina began to choke when she had to talk about what she really did not want to talk about. And here it is – salvation in the form of an asthma attack.

We had 20 sessions. We got acquainted with the symptom and with Christina’s life, learned to accept what we don’t like, to speak about it aloud, and not to transfer the “steering wheel” to the symptom. Learned neuromuscular relaxation and proper breathing techniques. We learned about how protective behavior works, learned to “catch” the maladaptive thoughts, which triggered the attack. And … everything worked out.

Now attacks are extremely rare, and Christina has learned to cope with them on her own. The quality of life has considerably changed for the better.

From the practice of our psychologist, Yulia Trofimova