From seizures to tics, can illness be all in the mind? Psychosomatic illnesses have long been something of a mystery – but now neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan is unravelling their secrets 9 May 2021 • 5:00pm As a neurologist, Suzanna O’Sullivan is well aware of the complex tricks our minds can play on us. Credit: Warren Allott Early on in the pandemic, at the beginning of the first lockdown, consultant neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan began to feel breathless as she walked up the stairs. “It was all so scary. I was thinking: ‘Oh my God, do I normally feel this breathless?’ I bought a thermometer and started checking my temperature, having never taken my temperature for years.” Fortunately, the symptoms soon dissipated. It wasn’t Covid. But like so many of us, hyper-vigilant and zeroed in on every ache, headache and sneeze, she had been primed for the worst. “It was understandable and perfectly normal,” she says, “Anxiety will produce changes in our body, which we could easily attribute to the illness.”