A Cure For PMS? Why More Women Are Counting On Psychotherapy

You may be able to relieve your symptoms for good.

The agonizing cramps, aching back and roller coaster mood swings only mean one thing: your period is coming, and it’s coming soon.

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You’ve had your period long enough that you can accurately pinpoint the exact day it’s coming based on these symptoms; you have it down to a science. “T-3 days,” you say. As you head to the closest drugstore to re-up on supersize tampons, ibuprofen and your favorite PMS indulgents to get you through the next couple days.

For many, ibuprofen and a hot bottle will do, but when the premenstrual symptoms start causing debilitating effects (like missing work, or cancelling plans), more women are seeking alternate forms of relief.

When You Think Psychotherapy, You Don’t Think PMS

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However, psychotherapy has been shown to help people with depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems that share symptoms with PMS and PMDD, and there is evidence that therapy for PMS and PMDD can help reduce anxiety and depression and keep symptoms from interfering with activities of daily life.

Does Your PMS Force You to Call in Sick? You Could Have PMDD

According to the DSM-5, the official diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association, between three and eight percent of premenopausal women are significantly incapacitated for a few days each month with PMDD, and unable to function socially or professionally.

Basically, PMDD is like a supercharged PMS, with many symptoms identical to those of major depressive disorder (the main difference is that PMDD is cyclical). Since symptoms are so similar, it’s important to receive an accurate diagnosis from a qualified and trained professional.

Your PMS Could Get Worse Closer to Menopause

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A whopping 75% of women experience at least one significant symptom of PMS during most months of their childbearing years, and surprisingly, symptoms are even more prevalent between the ages of 30 and 40. In fact, symptoms can actually get worse approaching menopause.

With Parts and Memory Therapy, You Could Cure Your PMS for Good

Parts and Memory Therapy is a way to do counseling or psychotherapy. It begins with two controversial ideas. The first is that the mind consists of many Parts or subpersonalities, each with its own submind. The mind isn’t a single, consistent, streamlined thing. The second is that nearly all adult mental and emotional issues result from our histories of painful life experiences. Permanent healing of these issues comes from finding the Parts of the whole self that carry the painful emotional memories and then neutralizing those memories. The Parts or subpersonalities of a person carry the memories. The memories are the targets for healing interventions. Healing is done by visualizations that neutralize the emotional energy connected to the

memories.

And when you heal the underlying memories that are connected to the symptoms you experience before your period (like rage, anxiety, panic attacks and feeling out of control), you’re able to gain permanent relief from your symptoms.

The good news is that we now know that psychotherapy like Parts and Memory Therapy can heal PMS. And we’ve been able to successfully bring permanent relief in as few as five sessions to women with the more extensive criteria of PMDD while reducing less severe PMS to near insignificance.

Parts and Memory Therapy is Becoming More and More Prevalent, but not Completely Mainstream

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Unfortunately, there aren’t many therapists trained in Parts and Memory Therapy. However, now that you know that PMS/PMDD can be cured with psychotherapy, you can take this newfound knowledge to a therapist in your area, and ask for the treatment of the painful life experiences that are the foundation for your distress.

Be aware that standard talk therapy that ignores your history of painful life experiences will be of little help. You want to find a therapist who is comfortable in working with traumatic and other painful memories, and who has the techniques to neutralize those memories. Four of these therapies are EMDR, Internal Family Systems, Coherence Therapy, and Ego State Therapy. Remember that you will probably have to let your therapist know about the connection between a history of disturbing life experiences and PMS/PMDD.

There’s a Book to Help Explain This Form of Therapy

To understand how Parts and Memory Therapy can help cure PMS, the book Healing Amelia describes the workings of Parts and Memory Therapy, a novel psychotherapy that brings actual healing rather than mere coping skills to emotional issues. The approach combines the recognition of dynamic, internal, personified Parts of the self with the recognition that the vast majority of adult mental health issues have their origins in traumatic and other painful experiences of growing up. Thus the healing or neutralizing of disturbing memories carried by internal Parts is the primary focus of most interventions.

The book demonstrates the potency of this therapeutic model through a dramatic narrative of healing Amelia of multiple issues that together affect tens of millions of women. The issues include PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome), PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder), Postpartum Depression, and failure in mother-child bonding. An additional feature of Amelia’s personality that demanded attention was her indomitable rage. Throughout the book, as one fiercely angry Part is healed, another takes her place until, near the end of the book, we finally find the Last Angry Part.

It’s Time to Stop Suffering

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Self-care is one of your most essential tools as a human being, and that doesn’t stop at drinking enough water and getting 30 minutes of exercise in a day. As a woman, caring for your emotional wellbeing when experiencing PMS or PMDD is just as important to your overall health.

The fact of the matter is, most women will experience PMS, and symptoms will only get more intense with age. As women, we’re made to believe that PMS is something that we’re forced to live with; it’s just part of “human nature”. It’s time to shift that school of thought.