Since 1946, we have systematically and consistently observed and treated allergic patients within the psychosomatic frame of reference. From this approach we have confirmed that not all occurrences of clinical allergy are caused by allergic reactions or other physical agents but may be set off and continued by emotional causes.1 We have also come to believe that in asthma there is a constitutional factor,2 a common denominator, which predetermines this clinical syndrome when it occurs whether from physical or emotional causes.
In a group of 201 clinically allergic children studied, practically all at one time or another had had asthma. Allergy skin tests showed that the great majority were immunologically allergic as well as clinically allergic.
In every instance the parents, sometimes the mother alone but in most instances the father also, were interviewed. The older children were also interviewed, and the younger ones were studied by means