Why Address the Emotional Roots of Eczema

You've done everything you knew to do.

You've prayed. You've had faith. You've done what you knew to do, and you did it with everything you had. You fasted, you repented, you asked God to show you what was wrong. You sat with elders or prayer ministers and let them pray over you. You did the forgiveness work when someone told you unforgiveness might be the issue. You did every single thing that was put in front of you to try.

And your skin still flares.

Here's the thing. When you've prayed that hard, believed that faithfully, obeyed that completely, and the condition is still there, there is a voice that starts whispering. It doesn't shout. It doesn't need to. It just asks a quiet question: What if the problem is me?

What if my faith isn't strong enough. What if I missed something. What if I didn't really forgive. What if I'm the one God isn't healing because I haven't gotten whatever "it" is right yet.

If you feel any guilt or condemnation while reading this, reject it as false. That quiet voice is not the Holy Spirit. It is an accusation dressed up as self-examination, and it has been stealing your peace for long enough.

I need to tell you something, and I need you to hear it: you have not failed.

Your faith is not deficient. Your prayers were not wasted. The nights you spent on your face before God asking Him to show you what was wrong, the fasting, the obedience, the forgiveness work someone told you to try. None of that was pointless. None of it.

So why is the eczema still there?

I don’t know, and I doubt anyone else does, either. It may be because there are tools you haven't been given yet, tools most people don't even know exist. And I’m writing this to give you all of them that I know. But the truth is that healing can be complex. It can be very simple, and I celebrate those when they happen, but I’m going to just guess here that if you’re reading this book, that’s not you. 

I know, I’ve been there, and I’ve worked with many people who have been here as well. I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to admit that there’s something happening that doesn’t fit in with their theology or knowledge. The world is so vast and science still exists because there are realms of things we don’t know yet. And God is immeasurably bigger than the world and incomprehensible in so many ways to us, or he wouldn’t be God. 

What I've found, over and over, is that prayer and faith and obedience are real. They matter. They are absolutely powerful and essential tools. But they are not the only tools. And most people have never been told about the others. And often people are shamed for needing other tools.

There is a growing body of research on the specific emotional patterns connected to specific physical conditions. Not general categories like "stress" but condition-specific roots that researchers have traced and documented. Most people have never heard of it. Eczema alone has at least six different emotional roots that show up in this research, and each one connects to the skin in its own way, through its own mechanism, with its own entry point for prayer and healing.

You used what you had. You prayed. You believed. Those are real tools and you used them faithfully. But it's like knowing your destination is somewhere in Colorado. Colorado is a real place. You could drive around Colorado for years. If your actual address is a specific house on a specific street in a specific town, knowing you're in the right state isn't enough to get you to the front door.

That's what has been happening. You've been in the right state. You've been driving faithfully. And the reason you haven't arrived is not that your car is broken or your faith is weak or God doesn't want to heal you. The reason is that nobody gave you the street address, because most people don't know it exists.

That is what this post is about. Not another invitation to pray harder or believe more. You've done that. I'm not going to ask you to do it again.

What I'm going to give you are tools you may not have seen before. The actual emotional roots—plural—that research connects to eczema specifically. Where it lives in the body, what it's responding to, and what you can do about it once you know.

You haven't been doing the wrong work. You've been working with the only tools you were given. Now there are more.

Give yourself grace for every year you spent wondering what was wrong with you. Nothing was wrong with you. You were using the only tools you had, and you used them faithfully. Now there are more.

So. Let's jump in.

What Eczema Is Doing in the Body

Before we get into the emotional side of this, I want you to understand what is physically happening in your skin. Because when you see the mechanics of it, the emotional connections start making a lot more sense.

Eczema is not one thing. It is a group of conditions, a family of them, really. Romero defines it this way: "Eczema or eczematous dermatitis is a group of dermatological conditions (skin), characterized by having various inflammatory lesions such as erythema, vesicles, papules and exudation. It is a condition of the surface layer of the skin (epidermis) that can occur in adults as in children and is manifested by a reddening of the area, itching and flaking" [Romero, Knowing Ourselves, 2018].

That is a dense sentence, so let me unpack it. Erythema is the redness. Vesicles are tiny fluid-filled blisters. Papules are small raised bumps. Exudation is the weeping, when the skin leaks fluid. And all of it happens in the epidermis, which is the outermost layer of your skin.

Here's the thing about the epidermis: it is your boundary with the world. It is where you end and everything else begins. It is where you touch the world and the world touches you. Every handshake, every hug, every breeze on your face, that is your epidermis making contact. When we talk about the skin in the language of body symbolism, we are talking about protection and contact. Boundary and connection. Both at once.

So when something goes wrong in that layer, when it becomes inflamed, when it itches, when it cracks and flakes and weeps, it is your body's contact surface that is under distress. Not your muscles. Not your organs. Your boundary.

Romero says that diseases of the epidermis are "almost always related to conflicts of separation" [Romero, Knowing Ourselves, 2018]. We will get into the specific emotional patterns in the next sections, but sit with that for a moment. The part of your body that makes contact with the world is the part that is inflamed. That is not random.

Wright comes at it from a different angle. He describes eczema as "a skin disorder involving itching, redness, inflammation and sometimes psoriasis which may or may not occur. Eczema is connected in its roots to fear, anxiety and stress disorders" [Wright, A More Excellent Way, 2009]. When he discusses neurodermatitis, which is chronic eczema, he goes further: it "may have a strong psychosomatic component; that is a very definite spiritual root involving anxiety, mental tension and emotional disturbance. It is definitely a result of the mind-body connection" [Wright, A More Excellent Way, 2009].

Now, I have a biology and chemistry background, so I want to be careful here. I am not saying eczema is "all in your head." It is absolutely, physically real. The inflammation is real. The immune response is real. The barrier dysfunction in your skin is measurable. And the clinical research confirms that the emotional component is also real, not as a replacement for the physical, but woven right through it.

A 2018 meta-analysis found that adults with atopic dermatitis had roughly twice the odds of depression and anxiety compared to people without it [Rønnstad et al., JAAD, 2018]. Twice. And a 2020 qualitative study documented what many of you already know from lived experience: rejection, stigmatization, and social isolation are common for people with eczema [Marron et al., Actas Dermo-Sifiliográficas, 2020]. The skin flares, people stare or pull away, and the emotional weight of that compounds everything.

Romero adds one more piece that I think is important: eczema "affects hypersensitive people who . . . live so much in terms of what others expect of them" [Romero, Knowing Ourselves, 2018]. Read that again slowly. Hypersensitive people who have been living in terms of what others expect. People who feel things deeply and have been shaped—maybe pressured—by the expectations around them.

Does that sound familiar? If it does, make note of what in particular resonates with you. That will help you later. 

I should also say, that while my focus here is the emotional roots of eczema, I’m also not against medical treatment. I was in the medical community as an Occupational Therapist for 25+ years, and I am pro-medicine when needed. However, in my own life, I’ve experienced the limitation of traditional medicine, which began my research into the emotional and spiritual roots of physical conditions. So none of this is medical advice. That’s outside the scope of my knowledge base and of this post and is a discussion you should have with your physician. Just know that I believe God can and does heal through medicine.

Possible Emotional Roots of Eczema

When researchers and practitioners have studied eczema specifically, they do not all point to the same emotional root. They don't even point to the same general category.

Joman Romero identifies eczema as primarily a separation conflict, the experience or fear of being cut off from someone or something important. A breaking-contact situation. He maps the body location of the eczema to the specific nature of the separation: hands relate to a partner or to work you've been separated from, the face relates to identity, elbows to feeling unsupported in your work [Romero, Knowing Ourselves, 2018].

Michael Lincoln identifies suppressed individuality, a "Don't be you!" injunction, often from a controlling or ambivalent parent. He describes it as attacking yourself before the anticipated external attack comes. He also identifies a pattern he calls "molting" or difficulty releasing old thought patterns, clinging to a past identity. And a third pattern: suppressed rage and powerlessness [Lincoln, Messages from the Body, 1991].

Evette Rose identifies feeling controlled, judged, and manipulated, a power struggle, either internal or with someone specific. Resentment that has no safe outlet. Anger that feels stuck because expressing it would change nothing [Rose, Metaphysical Anatomy, 2013].

And Henry Wright, a pastor and teacher who spent decades mapping the spiritual roots of disease, connects eczema specifically to fear, anxiety, and stress disorders. Not bitterness. Not self-hatred. Not the categories you'd expect. Even within his own framework, eczema points to a different address than the general one [Wright, A More Excellent Way, 2009].

Most people have never heard of this research. That's not their fault. It's not widely taught. It's not in most churches or prayer ministries or healing conferences. But it exists, and eczema has at least six different emotional roots.

The prayer you've done is real. The faith you've carried is real. And now there are tools you haven't had access to before.

Give yourself grace for that. You were working with the tools you had. You were working hard. And now there is a more specific map.

That's what we're going to walk through next, one root at a time, each one sourced and cited, each one with specific reflection questions and tools you can use on your own. Not a general sweep. A map drawn for eczema specifically.

Separation and Loss of Contact

The Root

Separation. The loss of contact with someone or something that mattered to you.

Romero writes that "eczema appears after a breaking contact situation, more or less intense. This separation may refer to a loved one, family, a pet, an object, an idea, etc." [Romero, Knowing Ourselves, 2018] Not only the dramatic losses: the divorce, the death, or the move across the country. Also the quiet ones. The friend who drifted. The job you left. The pet who died and everyone told you it was "just a dog."

Romero identifies three patterns within this: actual separation lived negatively, fear of separation, and lack of communication [Romero, Knowing Ourselves, 2018]. So this isn't only about losing someone. It's also about dreading the loss. And it's about being in the same room with someone and feeling completely cut off from them.

Here's the thing. Romero goes further than general separation, he maps where the eczema appears to what the separation is about.

• Hands: "separated from something I'm doing," or separation from father or partner.
• Mouth: "separated from someone we want to continue kissing."
• The crease of the elbows and behind the knees: "feel misunderstood and alone, nobody supports us."
• The bend of the elbow specifically: "separated from an embrace."
• The outside of the elbow: "separated from a job." 
• Left breast: "breaking contact mother/child."
• Right breast: "emotional separation from partner." 
• Head: "disappointment when we see our ability questioned."
• And the face: "big discomfort with oneself and the image we project" [Romero, Knowing Ourselves, 2018].

Romero also notes that diseases of the epidermis are "almost always related to conflicts of separation" [Romero, Knowing Ourselves, 2018]. And for children with eczema, the connection is even more direct: "Conflict of separation from the mother." In a child, this separation represents a vital conflict, it threatens survival, which is why the eczema often generalizes across the entire body rather than staying in one location [Romero, Knowing Ourselves, 2018].

Michael Lincoln's work supports this through a different lens. He describes a "molting" theme in having difficulty releasing or clinging to past connections and patterns [Lincoln, Messages from the Body, 1991]. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the skin is governed by the Lung meridian, which holds grief, sadness, and the inability to let go. When the Lung system is weakened by unprocessed loss, boundaries break down, including the physical boundary of the skin itself.

Why This Matters for Eczema

The skin is the body's contact surface. It is literally the organ of touch, the organ that connects you to everything outside yourself. So when the body registers a contact disruption, it makes sense that the contact surface is where the response shows up. The inflammation, the itching, the barrier dysfunction, the skin is reacting to a break in connection.

And where on the body the eczema appears is not random. If your eczema is on your hands, the question is not "what general emotion am I carrying?" The question is: who or what was I separated from that I was holding or doing? If it's behind your knees or in the crease of your elbows, the question shifts: where do I feel unsupported and alone?

If you feel any guilt or condemnation reading this, as if somehow you caused your eczema by not processing a loss well enough, reject it as false. You did not create this. The body stored something the mind couldn't finish processing. That's not failure. That's your body doing what it does. And now you have tools to help it release what it's been holding.

What to Do

Meridian Release

Note: If you’re not comfortable with this type of tool, visualize gathering up all the negative emotions from your body and placing them at the foot of the cross and asking Jesus to fill you with the opposite. I typically start at the tips of my toes and work my way up my body picturing my hands gathering darkness from all areas of my body - or almost like I’m peeling off a full body sticker, if that makes sense. Then I have a big ball of negativity and I place it on the altar or at the foot of the cross and ask Jesus to take it and fill me with the opposite. God may give you a different picture that fits you better, and that’s great. The key is to fill all areas with the positive emotions as nature and the spirit world abhor a vacuum, so let’s not give it one.

The emotions tied to separation — sadness, grief, yearning — live in the Lung meridian. Sorrow lives in the Small Intestine meridian. Since grief and sadness appear in more than one meridian, a multi-faceted approach — working with both the Lung and Small Intestine meridians — is often more effective for emotions this layered.

Lung Meridian (sadness, grief, yearning)

Small Intestine Meridian (sorrow)

Refill: Once you've released, hold the same meridian point and shift your intention to receiving the positive opposite. Switch to the Right Temple — this is about what's ahead of you, not what's behind you.

• Lung positives: Joy, Comfort, Content, Friendly, Fulfilled
• Small Intestine positives: Clarity, Decisive, Happiness, Joy, Comfort, Healing

Let those settle. Don't rush through the refill — it matters as much as the release.

Emotional Release Prayer:

Jesus, I confess and repent for holding on to and coming into agreement with the emotions of [name the emotions: sadness, grief, yearning, sorrow, etc.]. I gather up these emotions and any and all entities that came along with them, and I cast them to the cross of Jesus. I revoke any and all rights that they've had and I place the blood of Jesus between all of them and me. I ask you Jesus to reverse all effects of these emotions and fill me with [the opposite, positive emotions: joy, comfort, contentment, clarity, healing]. Thank you. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Collarbone Statements

Reprocess Misbeliefs

Misbeliefs Prayer:

Jesus, I confess and repent of believing the lie that [name the misbelief: e.g., "I'm not worth staying for" or "people always leave"]. I break it off of me and cast it to your cross, placing the blood of Jesus between all of that and me. I accept your truth that [the opposite: e.g., "I am deeply loved and connected" or "You will never leave me or forsake me"].

Heal Trauma

Work in layers — address each piece as it comes rather than trying to process everything at once. Trust Jesus and your intuition to guide what surfaces.

The sequence: collarbone statement to prepare your system, emotion release for what comes up, reprocess any misbeliefs connected to the event, then forgiveness for anyone involved (including yourself). Write it down as you go — sometimes more than one thing surfaces at once, and you want to make sure you address each piece.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness Prayer:

Jesus, I confess and repent of holding onto unforgiveness of [WHO] for [WHAT]. I choose to forgive them, and I ask that you will help me to continue to forgive them as often as I need to. Thank you for helping me forgive them.

Resources that may be helpful for you:

Click the images to see more and/or purchase.

Flower Essences by Freedom Flowers

Reflection Questions

1. What comes up for you when you look at where your eczema appears on your body — and then read Romero's map of what each location points to?
2. Is there a separation you've accepted intellectually that your body might still be holding?
3. When you think about "loss of contact," does your mind go to a person? Or does it go somewhere you didn't expect — a place, a job, an idea of how life was supposed to go?
4. If your eczema started in childhood, what was happening with your connection to your mother — or to the person who felt like safety?

Next: The Root of Suppressed Individuality.

This is from an upcoming book: The Emotional Roots of Eczema and the Tools to Heal Them. Subscribe below for updates.