Psychosomatic Factors in Dermatoses

Allergy Diagnosis in Atopic Eczema with the Atopy Patch Test

“…Hysterical personality features were associated with dermatitis factitia; obsessional personalities with diffuse prurigo, lichen simplex chronicus, and pruritus ani; anxious personalities with rosacea, seborrheic dermatitis, pompholyx, and lichen planus; and narcissistic personalities with exudative dermatitis. Cormia (1947) examined forty cases of psychosomatic dermatoses and while he found a correlation between personality type and diagnosis, it was imperfect with many exceptions to the rule. Despite this, he 1 2 8…”

A Molecular Explanation of Stress Dermatitis

“…The process may be hastened by release of vasoactive amines and hormones due to psychological reasons, stress, or trauma. As a consequence of the forementioned sequence of events, it is understandable that release of sympathomimetic amines and hormones along with the presence of antigen may perpetu ate or even worsen cell-mediated immunity.Abundant data in literature support the assumption that psychogenic fac tors, anxiety, stress or exhaustion can influence allergic sensitization reactions (Cormia, 1946;Guy, 1952; Polak and Bielicky, 1953\Poldk, 1955, \951\Mier-zecki et al, 1959,Storck, 1960, Brown and Young, 1959, 1965\Shanon, 1970. Mettrop and Visser (1969) found in guinea pigs that the probability of skin reactions of delayed-type hypersensitivity to DNCB in a subthreshold concentra tion was significantly greater in the once-stressed group compared to the control group.…”

Neuropsychiatry for the flight surgeon

“…In the sane sense, the skin is the very reactive shell between the personality and the outside world. Cormia (89) has analyzed the psychosomatic factors in dermatoses, and has found that the temptation to employ 'organ language' is particularly great in this field, for example: worry (picking); anxiety (pruritus, sweating); fear and anger (urticaria); guilt and shame blushing and rosacea); hostility, self-punishment and eroticism dermatitis factitia), and sexual pleasure (cutaneous masturbation).…”