Woman, Life, and Blood: Psychosomatic Bleeding

Abstract

Woman’s blood, what it means for them, how they talk about it, has always been of great interest to us. Metrorrhagia being but one part of that theme, we will not limit our study to the so-called functional metrorhagia, and we will try to enlarge it to include menorrhagias and even normal menstruations. The psychosomatic origin of metrorrhagias and even more so of menorrhagias is questioned by most clinicians. Indeed, an organic cause can generally be found: hematological diseases, cancer, fibroma or polyposis, endometrial hypo- or hyperplasia, genital infection, or polycystic ovaries. The cause or consequence of ovarian dysfunction, and polycystic ovaries are at the junction of the psychological and the somatic; their emotional etiology is therefore more easily acceptable, as it has long been the case with amenorrhea. Could we say that untimely blood, out of its normal rhythm and quantity, is the other side of amenorrhea, the absent blood?