NEUROTIC SYMPTOMS AND EMOTIONAL FACTORS IN ATOPIC DERMATITIS

Abstract

The increasing awareness on the part of physicians of disorders belonging conjointly to the fields of internal medicine and psychiatry has focused attention on the study of emotional states in medical illnesses. Members of the psychiatric department of the Massachusetts General Hospital have been working for some years on these problems, and studies have appeared on rheumatoid arthritis, 1 bronchial asthma 2 and mucous colitis. 3 The purpose of these studies has been to investigate the role of emotional states and situational factors in the precipitation or exacerbation of these disturbances with an ultimate diagnostic and therapeutic goal in mind. The present paper on neurodermatitis is a preliminary report of another study in this series. The term neurodermatitis in this study refers specifically to the dry type of neurodermatitis of Stokes 4 and Becker. 5 This condition is essentially the same as that called atopic dermatitis by members of the