Skin-picking (excoriation) disorder

[Lanell]

In skin-picking disorder, people repeatedly pick at their skin, damaging it.

People with skin-picking disorder may feel tense or anxious just before they do it, and skin picking may relieve that feeling.
Doctors diagnose the disorder when people pick at the skin enough to damage it, try to stop picking at their skin and cannot, and are significantly distressed by their behavior or function less well because of it.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy that specifically focuses on skin-picking disorder and certain antidepressants or N-acetylcysteine may help lessen symptoms.

Skin-picking disorder is a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder. People with the disorder compulsively pick at or scratch their skin. They do not do it to remove a spot that they think is unattractive (as people with body dysmorphic disorder do). Some people pick at healthy skin. Others pick at calluses, pimples, or scabs.
Skin picking often begins during adolescence, although it may begin at other ages. About 1 to 2% of people have the disorder. About 75% of them are female.