Gynaecological Psychiatry

Abstract

The value of the ad hoc psychiatric clinic in the treatment of gynaecological disorder is being slowly accepted even by the most conservative of practitioners, but such clinics have the disadvBtntage that they tend to take the patient out of the environment to which she has turned for advice and to treat her purely on psychological lines. In order to avoid this segregation it was decided to establish, on an experimental basis, sessions for the psychiatric investigation and treatment of cases referred with gynaecological symptoms. Some of these patients were plainly victims of an anxiety state, with no evident physical cause for their symptoms, but there were others with definite pelvic lesions needing gynaecological investigation and treatment whose symptoms were not entirely compatible with the physical findings.In the following description of the work of this " clinic within a glinic" we have attempted to summarize the impressions formed during two years' work and to show that there is room for such a clinic within a gynaecological department. We have made no attempt to put forward any original views on the aetiology or treatment of gynaecological ailments, and the opinions expressed under various headings are not intended to have the weight of vast experience Qr to imply that our beliefs are already fixed concerning these matters. It is hoped that the results of this experiment will stimulate others to offer their experiences for discussion.The clinic was established to serve a double purpose: (a) to assess the degrce to which somatic symptoms in particular cases were influenced by psychological factors, and (b) to give such short-term psychotherapy as was practicable. Cases referred by the gynaecologist comprised those in which psychoneuroses were obvious and those in which the physical findings were insufficient to account for the patients' symptoms. Personality, heredity, constitution, and life history were studied in each patient and an attempt was made to assess the incidence and relative potency of aetiological factors leading to

Gynaecological health in women with delusional disorder: A cross-sectional and one-year follow-up study

“…As suggested by previous reports [11] , many disturbances of genital function such as dysmenorrhoea and metrorrhagia can be found in women with low social support and comorbid psychiatric symptoms.…”

The Treatment of the Non‐malignant Unhealthy Cervix

“…In our experience the syndrome produced by an unhealthy (infected) cervix can exactly mimic two other common conditions, viz., endometriosis and pelvic congestion (Young, 1938;Snaith and Ridley, 1948), the latter quite often associated with a history of unsatisfactory coitus, e.g., coitus interruptus. Chart I illustrates the difficulty.…”