ABSTRACT
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) has been described as the disease of the ‘80s, “an illness from which more than three-quarters of women suffer”. Pregnancy and childbirth were treated as a disease in the late 1800s. The PMS Treatment Program at Milwaukee Psychiatric Hospital was established to provide women with the opportunity to manage and benefit from their natural menstrual experience. Historically, women have sought help from professionals for physical symptoms often related to the reproductive system. Women experiencing premenstrual symptoms need careful evaluation by professionals competent to differentiate between premenstrual changes, premenstrual symptoms, and the presence of emotional illness. PMS occurs not as an isolated physiologic experience but in a living woman with her own history, psychological processes, interpersonal relationships, and lifestyle. This woman, in turn, lives not as an isolated individual or merely as a member of certain familial or nonfamilial groups, but rather as a member of a larger society, an international community of women.
