FOR THE past few decades dermatologists and psychiatrists alike have become increasingly aware that emotions and cutaneous changes are often related. There is an abundant literature today which concerns itself with observations (and attempted interpretations) of this relationship. This recognition is in line with the modern concept of disease, which predicates that all functions and processes of the human organism are interrelated and that disturbance in one sphere has its effect on other, apparently unrelated, spheres.
One finds, however, that, although there is general agreement by dermatologists and psychiatrists that their fields overlap, there is no agreement as to the nature of the essential relationship. The area of controversy centers in part around the question of etiology. It is agreed that some emotional disturbance often accompanies and follows some cutaneous disorders, but it is a question whether or not certain types of cutaneous lesions owe their origin to disturbances in