Career women cope better with menopause—study

Press, 19 April 1985, Page 9

Career women cope better with menopause —study

NZPA-AP New York Women with enjoyable careers and good education show less irritability and depression during menopause than other women,

which suggests that those symptoms can be avoided, says an American psychotherapist. Simply realising that those reactions are determined by attitude can help many women avoid them, Ruth Formanek told a meeting of the psychoanalysis division of the American Psychological Association. In a summary of menopause studies, she said

women following enjoyable careers have been shown to suffer far fewer psychological problems at menopause than other women. The same trend is seen among women with higher family income, higher education, and higher social class, she said. Studies in different cultures show that if society expects a menopausal woman to be irritable and feel her life is over, women

tend to comply/ Research also found that women who complained of dissatisfaction with their marriages had more psychological menopause symptoms. “Over all, results suggest that depression and irritability are not biological signs of menopause, but rather psychological reactions to what some women see as a symbol of advancing age, when one gets the impression that options have been lost,” she said. “The reactions may be especially strong for women in lower social classes who believe in older stereotypes about menopause being the end of life.” In contrast to working women, such a woman may see herself as valuable only for producing children. “The only way she can be somebody in society is to be a housewife, mother and to produce children. With menopause, that option is no longer viable,” Ms Formanek said. Ms Formanek,, a psychologist at Jewish Community Services in Rego Park, New York, and associate clinical professor in the child and adolescent psychotherapy programme at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, also said that a woman’s attitude toward menopause can be shaped by her views on having children.