What my Eczema taught me about the Trauma & Healing: A (psycho-)somatic perspective on atopic dermatitis

When i dared to listen deeply, the healing started happening.

For a long time, I saw my neurodermatitis as something I needed to fight.

Creams. Diet changes. Supplements. Routines. Searches for the “right” fix.

I kept asking the same question over and over:

How do I get rid of this?

But after years of relapse, I started to realize that this question may have been too small.

Not because eczema is “just stress.” It is not. Neurodermatitis, eczema, and atopic dermatitis are complex and can be influenced by many factors, including genetics, inflammation, the skin barrier, stress, environment, sleep, lifestyle, and more.

But my own healing began to really and sustainably take place when I asked a different question:

What if my body is trying to tell me something? What might the message of eczema be?

That shift changed everything.

The Skin as a Boundary

One of the most meaningful insights I had was about the skin in its totality.

Our skin is not just a surface. It is the boundary between our inner world and the outer world. It protects us, filters what comes in, and also allows contact. This is true on factual, but also on symbolic level. And that idea became very alive for me in a somatic therapy session.

When I turned toward the symptom instead of away from it, I didn’t just “think” about my skin. I felt into it.

And what came up was a memory I had not connected to my symptoms before at all.

As a child, I remember feeling a lot of empathy and hurt when I saw sick people or homeless people. I felt deeply affected by suffering in the world. But there was no real way for me to help. I was too young, too small, too powerless.

So one of the only ways to cope was to disconnect. To soften the impact through a bit of dissociation. Now looking back, I even got the message from my parents in my youth that something changed, i wasn't so involved in hurt of others anymore. But it wasn't because I didn’t care, but because I cared so much and had no container for all of it. So pushing it away was the best thing for the child I was back then.

When that memory came up in the session, something clicked.

It made sense to me that my system may have learned something like this:

The world is too much. Letting it in hurts.

From there, the symptom started to feel less random. The same Trauma also seems to be connected to allergies.

Not as punishment, not as failure. But as protection and a reminder.

Learning to receive without absorbing everything

What I began to understand is that empathy does not need to mean absorbing everything.

That was one of the big healing lessons for me.

I had to learn that I could still be open-hearted without taking responsibility for all the pain in the world. I could feel deeply without personalizing every wound I witnessed. I could receive the good without shutting down because the hurt felt too overwhelming.

That felt like healing a inner conflict in me.

A part that had learned to close in order to survive slowly began to open again. But this time, with more choice, more boundaries, and more capacity.

For me, this became one of the clearest examples of how somatic healing works: not by forcing healing, but by bringing awareness into the body until a deeper truth can be felt directly.

Until the old pain can be digested and transmuted into wisdom. Because this capacity now supports me and doing my best work as a coach and therapist too.

The Anger I Never Learned to Express

Another layer that came up in my process was connected to another deeply misunderstood emotion, ANGER.

So diving deep once again in connection to the eczema symptoms this is what became very clear for me.

I never really learned how to express anger in a healthy way.

In my family, there wasn’t much of a conflict culture. Things were often kept polite, smooth, unspoken. That may sound peaceful from the outside, but it can also mean that important emotions have nowhere to go. So I adapted.

I became someone who held back. Who stayed agreeable. Who learned to avoid friction. And over time, I see now that this may have shaped not only my relationships, but also the way my body carried tension.

Because when anger has no healthy expression, it doesn’t disappear. It can turn inward. It can show up as tightness, irritation, inflammation, overwhelm, or the body having to say what the voice never did.

Learning to express myself more honestly, to tolerate conflict, and to say what I actually feel has been a huge part of my healing. And it seemed to have lead to a relief on body level, my skin. It doesn't have to carry this energy anymore.

The Holistic Picture Matters

What changed my healing most was not one single method.

It was the combination of many things.

Somatic awareness helped me listen to the body instead of only thinking about it.

Inner child work helped me recognize younger parts of me that had learned to cope by disconnecting, pleasing, or staying small.

Movement and yoga helped me come back into my body more fully.

Nutrition helped too. Better eating supported my system in a very real, practical way.

Sleep, stress, boundaries, lifestyle, and emotional honesty all mattered.

This is why I no longer believe healing is one-dimensional.

For me, it was never just the skin.

It was the whole picture.

How this shapes my holistic therapy work

This is also why I work the way I do.

When a client comes to me with a symptom or a life struggle/pattern, I don’t see them as broken.

I see a whole human being whose body may be carrying more information than the mind has been able to process yet.

Oftentimes the pain, the symptom is the entry point.

Sometimes it is the only thing that finally forces our attention inwards.

And then we can begin to ask better questions:

If the symptom could speak, what would it say?

What emotions were never allowed to move?

Where did I learn that it wasn’t safe to feel, speak, or take up space?

What parts of me are still trying to survive in old ways?

What would it be like to meet myself with more honesty, compassion, and capacity?

That is the space I work in now.

Not just symptom removal.

But embodied understanding.

What I Learned From My Neurodermatitis

If I had to put it simply, my neurodermatitis taught me this:

I cannot heal by fighting myself.

I heal by listening.

By understanding the deeper patterns behind my reactions.

By learning to feel without drowning.

By allowing empathy without absorbing everything.

By expressing anger in healthy ways.

By supporting my body with movement, nourishment, and rest.

By letting the nervous system move from survival toward safety.

By remembering that my body is not my enemy:

It is intelligent.

It adapts.

It protects.

And sometimes it asks for a new way of living through the language of symptoms.

A gentle invitation

If any of this resonates, you may be someone who has already tried many things and still feels that there is a deeper layer waiting to be understood.

Maybe your body is speaking.

Maybe your emotions are asking for more space.

Maybe the same pattern keeps repeating in a different form.

If so, I would love to explore that with you.

In my 1:1 work and 4-month mentorship, I help people look at these patterns and physical problems through somatic awareness, inner child work, nervous system regulation, and a more holistic understanding of their life and body.

Not to force healing.

But to create the kind of capacity that makes healing possible.

If this speaks to you, you are welcome to book a free discovery call.

[Book your call here]

Much love and all the best

Cedric

Cedric Pfeiffer is a somatic practitioner and yoga teacher whose work focuses on nervous system regulation, emotional intelligence, inner child work, and the relationship between body and mind. His approach combines contemplative traditions, somatic practices, and holistic lifestyle principles to help people better understand recurring emotional and physical patterns.