Atopic Dermatitis. Psychosomatics Of Neurodermatitis

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Different specialists under the term "neurodermatitis" combine skin changes caused by itching and subsequent scratching. We will consider only 3 of them, which in the perception of many are one and the same, but in practice they have significant differences. In order not to confuse the reader with the details, I will only note that there are disputes among doctors about the nature and connection of eczema, atopic dermatitis and neurodermatitis. In our case, these terms have a significant difference, since the essence of each of them has a special characteristic and, accordingly, different psychological problems and causes.

Atopic dermatitis (AD)

The very term atopy tells us that, unlike neuro-dermitis, AD is of an allergic nature, and unlike eczema, it shows a clear connection and dependence with the psychosomatics of allergies. Most likely it is this, and not the "rejection of the mother" as it was believed in the 60s, was shown by studies where children who were bottle-fed were more prone to blood pressure than "infants". However, let's go in order. And the first question that we have to touch on sounds like this:

Is BP a psychosomatosis (psychosomatic illness)?

A number of families with a certain inheritance do have similar behaviors, principles, attitudes and psychological characteristics, which we will consider below. At the same time, most often AD is not a psychosomatosis, and many psychological problems associated with it secondary … Therefore, a timely visit to a doctor and high-quality diagnostics often contribute to a lack of awareness of those very secondary psychological problems.

When can HELL have a PRIMARY psychosomatic nature?

1. Constitutional predisposition … This situation arises when the mother and child belong to the same constitutional type - asthenic. Light and dry-skinned, tall, thin (a mother may recover a little due to pregnancy, and a child, on the contrary, may not gain weight well), more often blondes or light blond. The nature of this type is mainly associated with such behavioral patterns as: orderliness (cleanliness and order), strictness, rigidity, conservatism, control and over-planning. Such children show dependence on the regime, a kind of predictability (for example, they defecate or ask to eat at a certain time), quiet behavior, obedience and diligence at an older age. Often, mothers of this type may develop OCD after childbirth in the form of a desire to constantly clean and tidy, disinfect everything around and sterilize everything baby. Yes, this often leads to the development of allergies in babies, but the primary in this case in the meaning of psychosomatics is the irrepressible craving for cleanliness and order, and in the meaning of psychosomatics of allergies there is a constant conflict between "I want and can", since the total need for cleanliness and order is unnatural for children. age. Since in this case the mother and the child belong to the same psychotype, what the child reads in the form of non-verbal information responds to himself and gives "permission" to disclose heredity (in such families, skin diseases are often hereditary and are combined with asthma). It is important to note that if the child belongs to a different psychotype (of the same mother), then most likely, not finding his hooks and clues, such information will pass by and the risk of developing "psychosomatic" blood pressure will be extremely low. In psychosomatics psychotherapy, it can often be noted that visiting doctors, searching for an allergen, ordering menus, walking, bathing, taking medications and taking care of the baby's body, etc., help the mother to sublimate (redirect) this irrepressible craving for ordering. In turn, as a reward "for suffering", the mother becomes more loyal to the manifestation of childishness - chaos, disorder, spontaneity, etc. She wants to pamper the baby more, give him more positive emotions, allow him more unregulated pranks, etc.

2. Touched Syndrome. Speaking about the constitutional predisposition to asthenia, it is important to understand that tactile perception is different for all people. In some women, the nervous threshold is underestimated, i.e. it is difficult for them to transfer other people too close and often, both in simple communication and interaction, and in touching the body, hugging, etc., which immediately increases many times after the birth of a child. Then, striving to preserve themselves (to level the physiology of nervous overstrain), they unconsciously begin to choose such games and forms of interaction with the child that reduce the likelihood of contact, especially bodily contact. The child begins to experience sensory deprivation and again the conflict between "want and can" (like the mother is, but there is no bodily and emotional contact). If in this case the child does not have atopy, then there is no blood pressure. At the same time, if a child has a tendency to allergic reactions, he can sublimate this on the one hand, as if attracting attention to himself (in a mild form) or force the mother to take an active part in caring for him (regimen, bathing, skin treatment, communication through control, etc.). In this case, the best option is the opportunity for the mother to "be outside the home without a child" so that she has the opportunity to miss, especially for bodily contact (such mothers often say that outside the house, after an hour or two they have a strong desire to hug the baby, kiss and carry). The option of a nanny, grandmother, etc. is, on the one hand, an opportunity for a mother to restore a nervous resource, on the other hand, the child receives active attention while the mother is away, and then the attention of the mother is added, who, after a while, literally feels the need to be inextricably linked with the baby … Until the next moment of asthenic overvoltage.

Very often, modern mothers with asthenia, adhering to the principles of attachment theory, fall into a psycho-emotional trap, where, on the one hand, they try to completely surrender to the child, on the other, their nervous system physically cannot bear such an overstrain (up to a nervous breakdown). Here it is important to sort out the information on the shelves and find out which of what the mother does can be done differently so as not to break attachment and at the same time not to force her psyche.

3. Postpartum depression (hormones). When when mom breastfeeds her baby and is in a state of depression, this can be reflected in the discrepancy between the hormonal background, which the child's brain recognizes through milk, the behavior that the mother shows - smiling "forcibly", and showing hyper-protectiveness in every possible way, etc. In this regard, there is dissonance and the baby's brain trying to figure it out begins to "look closely" at everything that is happening. So an allergic reaction is nothing more than an excessive or erroneous reaction to some event. In such cases, the diet that the mother begins to follow in response to blood pressure not only reduces the number of allergens, but also affects the hormonal background of the mother herself, which can automatically level her psychological state. In addition, the child grows, it becomes easier to manage with him - it is more interesting to interact, depression recedes, blood pressure "outgrows").

What can be called SECONDARY psychosomatics in AD?

Child

1. Diathesis … When a child's cheeks turn red, it is not always clear what happened and whether it is blood pressure. In psychosomatics, diathesis is a kind of unconscious test of the mother's reaction to a possible problem. The child seems to say, "Look, I have the ability to react to things in a special way, what do you think about this?" And then the parent's reaction either gives an unconscious permission for the development of blood pressure, or stops it. Since diathesis in itself is not a diagnosis, but is precisely "a demonstration of a tendency to develop allergies." Those. diathesis suggests that the child has a tendency to blood pressure, but under certain conditions it may not manifest itself. On the psychosomatic side, these conditions are the absence of the above-mentioned patterns of behavior (excessive craving for cleanliness and order, control, asthenia (nervous overload), etc.). The same reaction as panic and the chaotic application of "folk methods" can sometimes even be perceived by the child as a kind of play, and periodic rashes can be a sign of a desire to add variety to the relationship, especially if the child's life is subject to a rigid routine.

2. Lichenization. Depending on the severity of blood pressure, neurotic scratching (OCD) may be added. It is caused by changes on the surface of the skin due to its trauma. In this case, the psychosomatic circle closes - damage causes itching, and uncontrolled scratching provokes even greater damage. More often this situation is observed in response to the mother's reaction to the disease and sublimates children's uncertainty, anxiety, fear, confusion in the sphere of "what I am like". Treatment, mother's confidence that she is doing everything right and faith in a positive result helps to cope with this. Depending on the child's age, a child psychologist will suggest more specific techniques for working through anxiety (from simply saying what kind of manipulations the mother does and what positive results she expects, ending with an increase in self-confidence and a decrease in criticism of older children).

3. Features of behavior … Due to the fact that AD does not always go away in the first 2-3 years of life and some children are annoyed at an older age, this also leaves its mark on their character, behavior, etc. Starting from shyness or defensive aggression, ending with various kinds complexes.

Mother

4. Pathological guilt … Most modern research shows that mothers whose children have complex forms of AD experience a destructive, irrational sense of guilt. It is connected both with the fact that often, when a mother wants to hug a child, she causes him physical pain, and with the fact that the very process of treatment forces the mother to show violence against the child. Unfortunately, in our practice, doctors often act as an additional catalyst for pathological guilt, who literally "spread rot" to the mother for taking care of her child incorrectly, feeding her the wrong way, driving in the wrong direction, and generally doing everything wrong. Some psychologists also add experiences with the label "you love badly, reject, etc.", which is not confirmed by modern experimental research. In this case, it is important to teach the mother the skills of critical thinking, provide modern and high-quality information and provide various kinds of assistance, including "fasting" days.

5. Somatized depression … Very often mothers come to psychotherapy of various psychosomatic pathologies, who do not even associate their condition with the child's blood pressure. Since the child does not have disabilities, any developmental delays or other pathologies, they consider their problem "unworthy" to be raised to the status of trouble. However, in addition to the fact that the life of such mothers is subject to constant diets, schedules, control, treatment, expectation of an exacerbation (in cases when children of AD have not "outgrown"), etc., objectively their life is subject to constant contact with the suffering of a little helpless dear person, where the complexity of the problem prompts a feeling of hopelessness, hopelessness and hopelessness (the longer the illness lasts, the deeper the depression). At the same time, the mother "must be strong", so she suppresses and neutralizes her feelings and sufferings in this regard. Which leads her to her personal psychosomatic pathology. Unconsciously, taking care of her health is a kind of "permission" for the mother to switch from the child to herself. And at the same time, a way of releasing psycho-emotional stress through the body, since mentally the mother strives to be stable for the child.

The psychodiagnostic problem of AD is that this disease mainly occurs in the first years of life, when we cannot objectively find out from the child what he feels, thinks, etc. All our recommendations are put forward by the method "from the opposite" - during of many years of research, we study the somatopsychotype, change the mother's behavior, see the result and conclude that it works this way. Therefore, even if there is some inaccuracy in identifying children's psychological causes, we still know which behavior change leads to improvements. The issue is quite different with eczema, since it occurs in people of different ages. The following notes are devoted to the psychosomatic analysis of neurodermatitis and eczema.