TREATMENTS FOR PMS AND MENOPAUSAL SYMPTOMS: PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPIES
The use of psychological therapies to treat PMS, various types of depression and menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes is based on the view that mental processes can play a significant role in the development and maintenance of these conditions and symptoms. Therapists treating women with PMS have used coping-skills therapies to alleviate the condition. These therapies have three main components. First, individuals are taught to examine their ways of responding to stressful situations. The second phase involves rehearsing new coping strategies that are based on a major re-think of the way they respond to stressful life events. In the third phase, women test their coping responses in the stressful situations that previously gave rise to their PMS and depression. Training programs, which sometimes incorporate relaxation skills, generally involve ninety-minute sessions once a week for eight to ten weeks.
In the case of Nina, aged forty, who had had unrelenting PMS for much of her adult life, coping-skills therapy helped her to identify cues associated with her irritability and feelings of tension and fatigue. She became aware that her approaching menstrual period generated feelings of having to ‘get things done’ in anticipation of her ‘bad days’ when even small things required an enormous effort. Instead of allowing these feelings to dominate her activities, causing overloading and a self-fulfilling exhaustion, she trained herself to develop a plan of action. ‘Don’t concern yourself about the bad days, just about what you have to do today,’ she told herself. ‘Keep the focus on the present.’ After several months she considered her PMS to be much less of a problem.
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Tags: Women's Health