The Psychological Treatment of the Menopause

Abstract

THE ESSENTIAL psychosomatic nature of clinical endocrinology comes out with particular clarity in case of the climacteric disorders. In the older convention the symptoms of the menopause were arrayed in two categories, the physical and the mental. In actuality, however, the two aspects are so intimately intertwined as to render them practically inseparable. Even in case of the most effective specific hormone therapy, it is often an open question to what extent the benefit is determined by so-called psychological reactions rather than by direct corrective influences upon the organic processes. Perhaps it is, on the whole, to the advantage of the patient that the confident administration of an estrogen has potent suggestive value in addition to any physiological influences it may exert. But the physician, at least, should be sophisticated in the matter and thus be in position to set up the most adroit type of case management in any given instance. Often much is to be gained if, in addition to hormone resour...