Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)

• New research on premenstrual distress by Jane Ussher, University of Westerm Sydney
• Menstrual Cycles: what really happens in those 28 days?!
• The Problematic of "experience": a political & cultural critique of PMS

New research on premenstrual distress by Jane Ussher

New research on women's experiences of premenstrual syndrome and premenstrual distress by Jane Ussher, Professor in Women's Health Psychology at the University of Western Sydney.  Jane challenges the medicalisation of premenstrual experiences and locates prementrual distress and its treatments in the context of women's lives and relationships.  More about Jane Ussher click here.

• 'Women's expereince of prementrual syndrome: a case of silencing the self' Janette Perz & Jane M. Ussher (2006)

• 'Managin the monstrous feminine: a study of premenstrual experiences' Jane M. Ussher

• 'Empathy, egalitarianism & emotion work in the relational negotiation of PMS: the experience of women in lesbian realtionships' Jane M. Ussher & Janette Perz (2008)

• 'Challenging the positioning of prementrual change as PMS: the impact of a psychological intervention of women's self-policing' Jane M. Ussher (2008)

• 'Premenstrual syndrome & self-policing: ruptures in self-silencing leading to increased self-surveilance & blaming of the body' Jane M. Ussher (2004)

• 'Evaluating the relative efficacy of a self-help & minimal psycho-educaitonal intervention for moderate premenstrual distress conducted from a critical realist standpoint' Jane M. Ussher & Janette Perz (2006)

• 'A complex negotiation: women's expereinces of naming & not naming premenstrual distress in couple relationships' Julie Mooney-Somers, Janette Perz and Jane M. Ussher (2008)

Menstrual Cycles: what really happens in those 28 days?! (Updated 2009) Click here.

An excellent American  women's health website by the Feminist Women's Health Charter with information about mentrual cycles and premenstrual syndrome.

'The Problematic of "experience": a poltiical & cultural critique of PMS' Susan Markens (1996) Click here.

Susan Markens looks at the way premenstrual syndrome is represented in the media.  She explores the paradox presented for women by the medical recognition of PMS on one hand and the potential risks of positioning women as the victims of their own biology on the other.