Mother Picks Her Child's Skin: A Case Report

Psychogenic skin picking is reported to be found in 5.4% of the general public and might accompany other psychiatric disorders. The exact place of psychogenic skin picking on the spectrum between impulse control disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder is under discussion and it has also been regarded as a psychosomatic symptom, which helps to neutralize aggressive impulses, or as a self-harm behaviour. In this paper, we present a case of a patient with lifelong skin picking behaviour, which started at childhood and continued with picking the skins of her two children and with a childhood sexual and physical abuse history. (Noropsikiyatri Arsivi 2010;47:263-6)