A Psychoanalytic Study of a Case of Chronic Exudative Dermatitis

There are very few cases reported in the literature in which psychoanalytic therapy has been employed in the treatment of chronic diseases of the skin. In 1916 Jelliffe and Evans1 published their findings in the case of a young woman with psoriasis who remained in analysis six weeks. Her lesions were regarded as hysterical conversion symptoms through which she gratified exhibitionistic impulses and by which she attracted a sympathetic interest from father physicians. In 1928 Allendy2 reported a case of eczema before the Psychoanalytic Society in Paris: two months of treatment brought about the disappearance of eczematous lesions of the hands which had been present for ten years and which had previously resisted all forms of medical treatment. Allendy concluded that her hands were diseased that she might not kill her father and her husband, that her eczema was a punishment for her desires to masturbate, and that her illness gratified her primary wish for idleness.

In 1932 Barinbaum3 eliminated a patient's eczema by the interpretation of the transference situation in which he found the clue to the special psychogenesis of the lesions which involved the fingers of both hands. This patient's eczema was a defiance of his father's wish that he become a baker. In a second case, Barinbaum showed that the eczema of a merchant was an expression of flight into illness and represented an attempt to solve an acute emotional conflict. His wife was frigid, preferred not to have intercourse with him, and suffered from an inguinal intertrigo which was unpleasant