I’m sure lawyers have tried, and maybe even some succeeded, in making the “PMS defense.” My client couldn’t help taking an axe to her husband, she was under the influence of PMS. Certainly it is a running stand-up routine and sitcom gag. But is there any truth to it?
PMS, and the degree to which the symptoms are psychogenic (learned/cultural . . . unconsciously “amplified”?) is actually a contentious, and fascinating, topic. During my decade teaching psychology, even the textbooks I used differed widely in their portrayal of it. While the developmental psychology texts seemed to accept it at face value, the introductory/general psychology texts cast great doubt upon its prevalence and typical severity. It sited significant cross-cultural differences (some don’t even recognize it) and a number of studies that found no evidence of significant emotional/social/work impairment during “that time” of the month for women, when such things as anecdotal reports and hindsight bias were eliminated.
Hmm.
Yet I can see how there could be something physiological going on. Hormones can exert a significant influence on many aspects of human psychology. An extreme example includes this recent, somewhat tangential, research finding:
Brain estrogen shows promise as schizophrenia treatment
Huh?
A study has found that Raloxifene – a synthetic estrogen currently used to treat osteoporosis – has beneficial effects on postmenopausal women with schizophrenia, with a test group experiencing a more rapid recovery from psychotic and other symptoms compared to control groups.
Research project leader and Director of the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc) Professor Jayashri Kulkarni said women in the trial who were given 120mg a day of the unique selective estrogen receptor modulator had a significantly greater improvement in psychosis symptoms compared with those on placebos and lower doses.
“The results were very promising. Under daily treatment with this ‘brain estrogen’, the women in the study had improvement in their key psychosis symptoms and also experienced enhanced memory and higher learning capacity,” Professor Kulkarni said. [bold mine]
Yes, hormones can and do influence human psychology in many, complex ways. Yet so can social/cultural dynamics. My own verdict is that our culture is likely guilty of exaggerating (and encouraging by fostering preconceptions and directing attention to) the PMS-defense.
Of course, there is a great deal of individual variation in how much a woman’s estrogen and progesterone levels fall and rise over the course of her cycle. As there is likely individual variation in how these fluctuations influence her brain. But influence they certainly can.
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