Few would deny that the mind can affect the body, and MSNBC’s feel-good piece about psychodermatology is certainly right to quote a Ph.D. as saying:
“These emotional stressors can keep the best skin medicine in the world from working,” he says. “You’ve got to address what’s going on in the heart as well as on the skin.”
Makes sense. We would add just two cautionary notes that are missing from the article. First, psoriasis is often minimized in our culture and in the media by suggesting that it is simply a reaction to stress. But psoriasis is seen in infants and in nuns, groups not known for needing psychoanalysis. Genes that make people susceptible to psoriasis have also been identified, so over-reliance on the “stress narrative” can undermine efforts to educate the public about the serious nature of this immune system disease.
Second, a leading dermatologist once told us she had treated janitors and CEOs, and both had lots of stress in their lives. Her point was that stress is a fact of life, like death and taxes, so while stress reduction can help, stress elimination is not a realistic long-term treatment option.
So while we will continue to resist media oversimplification of psoriasis as merely a function of stress, we would urge anyone with the disease to take those steps that appear to give our medications the best chance of working, including limiting tobacco, alcohol, body weight and stress in our lives. And don’t forget to take those naps.
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