The skin and the brain interact through psychoneuroimmunoendocrine mechanisms and through behaviors that can strongly influence the initiation or flaring of skin disorders. OBJECTIVE: To obtain knowledge of these factors to assist in designing treatment plans for specific skin disorders. METHODS: Psychocutaneous disease literature for the past 80 years was reviewed. RESULTS/CONCLUSION: Therapeutic options include standard psychotropic drugs and alternative herbs and supplements, the placebo effect, suggestion, cognitive-behavioral methods, biofeedback, and hypnosis. When simple measures fail to produce the desired results, combinations of drugs or addition of nonpharmacological therapies may produce better results. Psychophysiological skin disorders may respond well to nonpharmacological therapies that counteract stress, supplemented when indicated by anxiolytic or antidepressant drugs. Treatment of primary psychiatric disorders that affect the skin often results in improvement of the associated skin disorders. Psychiatric disorders secondary to skin disorders may also require treatment.

Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2008 Apr;9(6):973-85. Shenefelt PD. Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA. pshenefe@health.usf.edu

The aim of the present study was to assess the efficiency of conscious hypnosis on patient cooperation. The subjects were 30 patients (14 females and 16 males) with a skeletal Class II division 1 malocclusion, divided into two equal groups, a control and a study group. The mean age was 10.78 +/- 1.06 years for the hypnosis, and 10.07 +/- 1.09 years for the control group. Both groups were treated with cervical headgear containing a timer module. The patients were also asked to record their actual wear time on timetables. The hypnosis group patients were motivated with conscious hypnosis while the control group were given verbal motivation by their orthodontist. The timer modules were read at every visit and compared with the timetables. Analysis of variance was used to determine the differences in measurements at each time point. For comparison of the groups, an independent t-test was used. A statistically significant decrease (P < 0.05) in headgear wear was observed in the control group from the first to the sixth month; however, the difference in the hypnosis group was not significant. This result indicates that conscious hypnosis is an effective method for improving orthodontic patient cooperation. There was a low correlation between actual headgear wear indicated by the patient and that recorded by the timing modules, which showed that, timetables are not consistent tools for measuring patient cooperation.

Eur J Orthod. 2008 Feb 8 Trakyai G, Sayinsu K, Esref Müezzinoglu A, Arun T. Department of Orthodontics.