Abstract
In recent decades, psychological or socio-cultural influencing factors have considerably changed morbidity, and the pathogenetic understanding of causality and therapy concepts in dermatology; greater attention is being paid to the relationship between the skin and the psyche. Mental disorders are present in up to one-third of all patients in dermatology (Dalgard et al., J Invest Dermatol 135:984–991, 2015). In addition, there are disorders in coping with the disease. Psychological factors can have a considerable influence on the manifestation and course of skin symptoms. Furthermore, chronic skin diseases are often experienced as highly stressful by those affected. Accordingly, psychosomatic aspects in the sense of the biopsychosocial disease model must be considered for many patients and symptoms in dermatology, also in order to make a successful specific therapy possible. Psychosomatic dermatology deals with skin diseases in which psychological causes, consequences, or accompanying circumstances have a therapeutically significant influence (Harth et al., Clinical management in psychodermatology. Springer, New York, 2009).
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Harth, W., Gieler, U. (2022). Psychodermatological Diseases. In: Plewig, G., French, L., Ruzicka, T., Kaufmann, R., Hertl, M. (eds) Braun-Falco´s Dermatology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-63709-8_84
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-63709-8_84
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