I hate the stress explanation.  My doctor spent a month telling me that I was just suffering from stress with various things, actually with 2 things in particular.  I hate it, because he basically called me a hypochondriac when I  have been to see him with different ailments about 2 times in my life, and the first 2 were actually when I was 5 and had chicken pox and my first major flu.  So I’m not big on doctors anyway.  But likewise, I hated it just as much when my dermatologist went into the stress argument with my acne.  Granted, I did have a lot of stress at that time and still do according to stress tests.  I really don’t feel it the way I’m apparently supposed to.  But realistically speaking, I’m not bottling it up and then letting my skin and stomach express it.  It gives them a basic excuse for why my acne isn’t clearing up within 12 weeks with retinol and other things and why it isn’t making any kind of dent at all.  Granted, once I actually started just using natural treatments, there were no problems at all, it started going away immediately after I actually found the right one.  But honestly, I think with these things, stress is always the common excuse they use to explain why they are failing.