Dermatosemiotics Therapy: Healing as reskinning

Abstract

Background: The Dermatosemiotics Therapy (DST) is a new psychotherapeutic model with a neuroscientific, developmental, phenomenological basis. It is founded on the fact that the skin and brain have a common ectodermal background, which led to the fact that the skin is seen as an outer brain, the active regulator of both biological and psychosocial activity (skin-ego). In addition to its neurobiological functions, the skin also constitutes a semiotic border, through which some of the most basic psychological differences are translated and organized: self/other, inside/outside, present/absent, and real/imagined. Objective:  This review investigates the principles of Dermatosemiotics Therapy (DST), which conceptualizes healing as an experiential process of enskinment, overcoming linguistic alienation. Methods: The literature review was carried out in PubMed and Google Scholar, synthesizing the knowledge of phenomenology (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty), psychoanalysis (Didier Anzieu), and experiential therapies (Internal Family Systems [IFS], Schema Therapy). Results: Dermatosemiotics Therapy (DST) suggests that we live through multilayered skins: the biologically given skin and the symbolically constructed one, such as language and social norms and values. Human suffering and mental health problems are due to living through the symbolic skin, overdependence on these symbolic strata, at the cost of our immediate, lived experience ("lived skin"). The answer offered by DST is the concept of enskinfullness (a kind of mindfulness) that entails bracketing the symbolic skins and reconnecting with the present moment. This reinstates semiotic agency, authenticity and activating intrinsic healing by virtue of being in the bodily lived experience. Emergent biopsychosocial health and a unified, compassionate Self are the outcomes of this process and make DST the basis of an experiential therapy like internal family system and schema therapy.Conclusion: Dermatosemiotics Therapy (DST) turns out to be paradigm shift in mental health, where the skin is used both as a metaphor and a tactile medium and where therapeutic healing is achieved. It mediates between the cognitive and emotional approaches to therapy because it enacts what it terms as enskinfullness by shedding socially constructed layers, that is, reskinning, connecting the authentic (naked) Self to the present moment (life). DST offers an ecologically sound and sustainable approach to experiential-phenomenological psychotherapy.