Hannah Gallagher-Syed

ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership

A Genealogy of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder

Supervisor: Dr Lauren Wilcox  (University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies) 

Abstract:

My dissertation focuses on the emergence of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) as a psychiatric disorder, from its predecessor, late luteal phase dysphoric disorder (DSM-III-R, 1987), to its integration into the depressive disorders section of the DSM-5 in 2013. The recent history of this diagnosis is fraught with struggles between various actors, including feminist activists and medical professionals arguing about whether this diagnosis would further pathologize women’s menstrual cycles or would provide much needed relief to people suffering from debilitating emotional and physical symptoms. Whilst my aim is not to provide a clear-cut solution to this debate, which continues to divide actors invested in PMDD’s definition and treatment, I intend to trace the conditions of possibility of the emergence of PMDD as a diagnosis in the United States towards the end of the 20th century. Using a comparative approach which looks at the circulation, or lack thereof, of PMDD as a concept in the US, the UK and France, I aim to determine which medical traditions and “gender-race-pathology-nation" paradigms make PMDD’s emergence and operationalization easier and which cause resistance to this diagnosis. This aspect of my investigation draws on the work of feminist philosopher Elsa Dorlin on the co-constitution of pathology, gender, race, ideas of the nationhood and the emergence of the conditions of possibility of a “healthy female body”. 

I also attempt to unpack what PMDD does to AFAB individuals/women: how does receiving a psychiatric diagnosis on the basis of a problematic performance of femininity contribute to excluding or re-including these people into the scope of acceptable womanhood and femininity. What does this diagnosis, opposed to that of severe premenstrual syndrome – the preferred terminology in the UK medical world – do to people who menstruate but also to the conceptual boundaries of gender as a whole? 

Finally, my project questions the role of violence in the story of PMDD. Although PMDD is a phenomenon most likely rooted in neuro-endocrine issues, can the material-emotional conditions of one’s existence influence the way this disorder is experienced and expressed? Can experiences of interpersonal or systemic violence affect the experience of PMDD? Is the way PMDD functions as a diagnosis rooted in a history of epistemic injustice which repeats itself though this new diagnosis? Could the rage associated with PMDD be political?

Academic Background: 

Master 2 (Mention Très Bien) Gender Studies (Political Science Track), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France 
MSc (Distinction), Politics and Media, London School of Economics, UK 
BSc (First) Politics and Sociology, University of Bristol, UK 

Research Interests:

Critical menstrual studies, Sociology of health, Feminist epistemologies, Endometriosis, Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, Genealogical research, Sociology of circulation and reception, Feminist media studies.