Psychosomatic Medicine 2:22-33 (1940)
© 1940 American Psychosomatic Society

Some Psychological Aspects of Inflammatory Skin Lesions

¹ Department of Child Psychiatry, Temple University Medical School and the Graduate School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Two cases are reported in which the patients irritated and injured inflammatory lesions of the skin. Their behavior to their skin lesions was a form of childish autoerotism to which they turned because they found it impossible to have adequate emotional reactions and social relationships in their real life. Their inability to react adequately emotionally was due to fear; in one case largely a real fear of the consequences of any reaction because of an over-restricted environment, in the other, because of a fear of the superego.

One case is presented in which the patient solved her emotional difficulties by converting the emotional problem into an itching painful skin lesion. She had conflict between her desire to leave home and accomplish her desires, and her fear of her superego which was based on fear of social disapproval and a childish fear of her mother.

The solution of the emotional problems enabled the two first patients to cease their irrational behavior toward their skin lesions and cured the skin lesions of the third patient.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. H. STOKES THE PERSONALITY FACTOR IN PSYCHONEUROGENOUS REACTIONS OF THE SKIN Arch Dermatol, November 1, 1940; 42(5): 780 - 801. [Abstract] [PDF]