Psychosomatic causes of psoriasis in children and adults

About 3% of children and adults suffer from psoriasis. This disease manifests itself mainly in adolescence. At risk - young people up to 25 years, although repeated cases of later and earlier manifestations of the disease are described. The difficulty in treatment lies in the fact that the disease is considered impossible, it always has a very chronic course with periods of remission and exacerbation.

In this article we will talk about the possible psychosomatic causes of psoriasis.

Psoriasis is a non-contagious, non-infectious disease, mainly affecting the skin. The reasons for its appearance in medicine are unknown, while the theory of the autoimmune origin of the disease is used as the most likely theory of occurrence. Psoriasis is the formation of reddish skin areas with increased dryness. They slightly rise above the main layer of skin, slightly protrude. Papules tend to fuse and form plaques. They are called psoriatic.

The times of relative "calm" under the influence of some unfavorable factors are replaced by relapses. These factors include bad habits, infectious diseases, stress. The earlier the treatment begins, the greater the chance that the child’s quality of life will be improved. In the absence of symptomatic therapy, plaques can cover the entire body. In severe cases, psoriatic joint damage develops - psoriatic arthritis.

Psychosomatics considers human health not only from the point of view of anatomy and physiology, but also from a psychological point of view. Since scientists and physicians have not been able to officially establish the reliable reasons for the appearance of psoriasis for many years, psychoanalysts and psychologists are also trying to contribute. Many patients with psoriasis require constant psychotherapeutic help, since external psoriatic changes severely traumatize the psyche, a person needs help and support.

Gradually, over the years of observation, it was possible to create a psychological portrait of people with this ailment, which helped to clarify their common features and formulate what possible psychosomatic causes could underlie the disease. It should be understood that the skin performs the function of protection and at the same time communication with the outside world. On the one hand, they protect the body from the aggressive that may be in the external environment, on the other - they communicate with the world (heat dissipation, sweating). Receptors on the skin allow the brain to receive information about what is happening around - warm or cold, wet or dry, etc.

The health condition of a person’s skin is the health condition of his communication with the outside world.

At the physiological level, negative attitudes and emotions change the state of the hormonal background, affect the work of the nervous system, which immediately affects the work of the secretory glands of the skin, which leads to a wide variety of skin problems.

Psoriasis differs from other skin ailments not only because it cannot be cured, but also by psychosomatic features.

• Observations on patients with psoriasis allowed psychotherapists to argue that the disease develops more often in those who categorically reject the outside world and react to it with caution. These are people who do not like to establish new connections, do not like new acquaintances, we can say that they do not like people at all. They are well alone with themselves, at any opportunity they seek to retire. The subconscious mind quite sensitively catches what a person needs, and creates such diseases for him, with which he will have more chances to live life alone (psoriasis in this case frightens others). So a person gets what he has “ordered” to himself - loneliness and solitude.

• Another category of psoriasis patients is people who are aggressive towards the outside world. They differ from the first category in that they not only do not feel uncomfortable in the world in which they live, in society, but are also ready to declare war on this world on demand. They are often angry at everyone - neighbors, relatives, colleagues or schoolmates, and at the same time the government and pop stars. They "create psoriasis" in order that it never occurred to anyone to violate their personal boundaries, to invade and go for rapprochement. Psoriasis is their defense.
• The development of psoriasis are prone and people who are too anxious and subject to public opinion. They do not tolerate their own weaknesses and do not forgive those around them, their demanding requirements are sometimes pathological. Also, psychotherapists often call this ailment a snob disease (when a person is fenced off from the world due to the fact that he considers the world and the people in it to be worse than themselves, unworthy of themselves).

Psoriasis is one of the few diseases that always has children's roots, that is, the basis for the wrong attitudes in the human mind is laid precisely in childhood. Knowing this, it will be easier to prevent psoriasis in their children.

Parents are fully able not to create a child’s destructive and destructive ideas about the external world into which he has come. As usual, they do it: “don't touch, it's dangerous,” “don't go through puddles, catch cold and die,” “be careful, don't talk to strangers,” “there are liars and scoundrels all around”. Also the child sees and copies the model of relationship to the world, which is used by his mom and dad.

In childhood, quite often parents, wanting to save the child from trouble, resort to total control (this is especially noticeable in the example of adolescents). If the mother and father begin to violate the personal boundaries of the offspring and do it rather aggressively, persistently and regularly, then the likelihood that the young man or girl will want to withdraw even more and protect herself from interventions will increase. Unfortunately, some people do it too well, and vulgar (ordinary) psoriasis starts.Only an adequate perception of the world from childhood can protect a child from a large range of skin diseases.

Louise Hay describes a psychosomatic illness as extreme, a heightened fear that someone outside will surely offendAs a result of this fear, a person almost loses his sense of self-confidence, self-confidence (in the good sense of the word), he even refuses to be responsible for the feelings he feels.

Canadian psychologist Liz Burbo writes a person with psoriasis is simply very uncomfortable in his own skin, he subconsciously wants to get rid of it, change the appearance. Such people necessarily need the help of psychologists, because on their own they cannot accept themselves as they are.

Psychotherapist Valery Sinelnikov, watching his own patients, expressed confidence that psoriasis leads to a strong sense of guilt and the inner need of a person to be punished. In addition, he argues that psoriasis is peculiar to the fact that he is too squeamish, who wants to defend himself in every way against everything dangerous, unclean from the outside world (the very childish setting described by us above). If plaques appear on the hands, this is a signal that a person is irritated by others, on the head there are problems with self-esteem, on the back - a person is “burdened” by the outsider.