Psychological influences in psoriasis

It has long been recognized that living with a chronic condition, such as p soriasis, can have considerable impact on the individual concerned. In turn there is increased understanding that the psychological distress encounter ed as a result of this experience can have implications for the course of t he disease. This short review takes this as a starting point and reviews ps ychological influences in psoriasis. The nature of the link between psorias is and stress is explored and its implications for the patient are discusse d in psychological and clinical terms. There seems little doubt that stress , either environmental or psoriasis induced, impacts on our patients and ha s important implications for the management of psoriasis.