Psychosomatic Disease of Climacteric Women in Changing Society

Abstract

Estrogenic changes in the life cycle of the women are influenced during puberty, pregnancy and partum periods as well as in the climacteric period, and also develop psychosomatic or psychogenic disturbances.According to H. Deutsch, a psychosomatic viewpoint of menopause is based on the loss of feeling of feminity in women, and also found in hysterectomized and castrated women.Also senility, anxiety and fear of death, changes in the family pattern due to separation or living together caused by employment after graduation or marriage of sons and daughters, an increase of divorce due to disillusionment and dissatisfaction with the husband, fear of pregnancy and reduction of reproductive fuction etc. seem to bring forth anxiety and conflict which are accompanied with many stubborn symptoms. Most of these aspects are closely related to the personality of the individual and facilitate the necessity of a psychosomatic approach.In this study, CMI, YG test, SCT and counselling were done with 48 cases of climacteric syndrome and the following results were obtained. Three out of 9 climacteric women had guilt feelings toward their husbands, which was more as compared to 6 cases who had quiet feelings toward their children.Twenty cases (42%) had climacteric symptoms with normal menstruation, which may mean that climacteric symptoms are also found before menopause. Also the age of the climacteric period has advanced due to the late menopause, changing one's life cycle.With regard to one's life history, a negative image of fatherhood was seen more often than that of motherhood in these maladjusted women.Social changes in the post-war era have been influencing climacteric women; however, the stable cultural patterns established in the family, environment, religioin and personal history, etc.do not cause these problems. It is necessary, on the part of doctors, to give more considerations to psychosocial factors of the climacteric women.