Psychologic Aspects of Allergy

Arnold, Harry L.

doi:10.1001/archderm.1959.01560180058016

Cited by 3 publications

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“…It is of considerable iaterest, shedding light on the mechanism of therapeutic relief by the cortico-steroids, that it was possible to abolish an artificially iaduced conditioned reflex in a goat, which had been taught to flex one foreleg ia response to the sound of a beU, by a single injection of hydrocortisone (Arnold, 1959).…”

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Psychocutaneous Medicine: Present Status and Trends of Inquiry

Obermayer

1962

Australas J Dermatol

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ANT investigator in a narrow field should, every few years-^half a decade seems a suitable interval-pause, sit back, and try to assess objectively the status of his chosen specialty.In 1955, I was invited by the editors of " Excerpta Medica " to contribute to its Milestones in Dermatology on the subject of psycho cutaneous medicine. I said then, " The influence of psychic and emotional factors on certain inflammatory dermatoses is acknowledged by most investigators. Considerable divergence of opinion exists, however, as to the range of that influence and as to the mechanism by which an emotional impulse gives rise to a cutaneous symptom." That divergence still exists.Moreover, we must admit that the ultimate goal of our labour, the closure of the gap between mind and body by demonstrating the exact mechanism by which our emotional stimulus turns into a somatic symptom has so far eluded us. The old controversy, however, whether mind or body plays the crucial role, no longer goes on. It is now a question of the best explanation of the interrelationship.Considerable progress has been made by the various methods of approach used in the study of psychocutaneous medicine, namely : psychologic, neurophysiologic and biochemical research, studies in allergy, genetics and the application of social psychiatry. We shall see that research in aU of these fields converges on one central theme: no single branch of science can find the whole answer independently of the others. PSYCHOLOGIC EESEARCH.Psychologic research, undertaken on both conscious (superflcial) and unconscious (deep) levels has continued to reveal data of importance.My^ co-workers and I (1957) have continued our research on patients with disseminated neurodermatitis. But instead of following the well-trodden path of general psychologic study, we have endeavoured to define minutely the specific emotional attitudes which are signiflcantly related to exacerbations of the dermatosis. We believe that our method has succeeded in elucidating the type of emotional illness these patients have.It is a psychosis sine psychosi or, in other words, a highly specialized reaction resembling psychosis, crises acted out in the skin without otherwise losing contact with reality. By this we do not mean that the patient is deranged. We mean that he responds to the world with inappropriate patterns of reaction, physiologic and psychologic, incorporated during the infant developmental period of life, which interfere with normal reactions. We are not alone in the demonstration of a mechanism in psychocutaneous reactions which is closer to psychosis rather

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confidence: 99%