Personality in Patients with Psoriasis

It has been known since antiquity that a connection exists between the skin and the mind. In fact, the first documented case of psychodermatosis dates to 1700 BC, when the physician to the prince of Persia speculated that the prince’s psoriasis was caused by anxiety over succeeding his father to the throne (Shafii & Shafii, 1979). However, it was not until 1891 that Brocq and Jacquet coined the term neurodermatitis and hypothesised that there was a pathological association between the skin and the autonomic nervous system, given that itching precipitates the appearance of lesions (Braun-Falco, Plewig, Wolff, & Winkelmann). A further 62 years passed before “Emotional Factors in Skin Disease” (Wittkower & Russell, 1953) was published. Since then, physicians, and dermatologists in particular, have been steadily becoming aware of the impact of an individual’s emotional state on skin disease and how this organ can reflect, like a mirror, their psychological state. It should come as no surprise that these two structures have a common origin in the ectoderm.