Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (184 page)

2
. C. E. Wenner and S. Weinhouse, “Diphosphopyridine Nucleotide Requirements of Oxidations by Mitochondria of Normal and Neoplastic Tissues,”
Cancer Research,
vol. 12 (1952), pp. 306–7.

3
. I am talking about common patterns here. Some illnesses are mysterious—almost archetypal—and don’t fit the personal patterns I describe in this section.

4
. D. B. Clayson,
Chemical Carcinogenesis
(London: Churchill Publishers, 1962).

5
. Caroline B. Thomas and K. R. Duszynski, “Closeness to Parents and the Family Constellation in Prospective Study of Five Disease States: Suicide, Mental Illness, Malignant Tumor, Hypertension, Coronary Heart Disease,”
Johns Hopkins Medical
Journal,
vol. 134 (1974), pp. 251–70.

6
. Cyndi Dale,
Advanced Chakra Healing: Heart Disease
(Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press, 2007), pp. 6–7.

7
. Personal communication from a colleague.

8
. See Norm Shealy and Caroline Myss,
The Creation of Health
(Walpole, NH: Still-point Publications, 1988), and also C. Myss,
Anatomy of the Spirit
(New York: Harmony Books, 1996), which goes into much more detail on the human energy system. Dr. Shealy, a neurosurgeon who founded the American Holistic Medical Association, has done extensive research on energy medicine with Caroline Myss. A world-renowned medical intuitive, Myss needs to know only the name and age of an individual to be able to give a full diagnostic reading; the in dividual can be located anywhere in the world. For several years, Caroline assisted me in clinical practice with energy readings on my own patients, whose physical conditions were correlated with energy anatomy. Her concepts formed the original basis for this chapter. In the second edition, I was assisted in updating the mate rial by Mona Lisa Schulz, M.D., Ph.D., who is both a psychiatrist and a behavioral neuroscientist with an extensive research background. She is also a practicing medical intuitive.

9
. G. A. Bachman et al., “Childhood Sexual Abuse and Consequences in Adult Women,”
Obstetrics and Gynecology,
vol. 71, no. 4 (1988), pp. 631–41.

10
. R. C. Reiter et al., “Correlation Between Sexual Abuse and Somatization in Women with Somatic and Nonsomatic Pain,”
American Journal of Obstetrics and
Gynecology,
vol. 165, no. 1 (1991), p. 104.

11
. Scientific studies supporting this premise include M. Tarlau and M. A. Smalheiser, “Personality Patterns in Patients with Malignant Tumors of the Breast and Cervix,”
Psychosomatic Medicine,
vol. 13 (1951), p. 117. In this study of women with cervical cancer, most of the subjects had uniformly negative feelings toward heterosexual relations. Most of them had a higher incidence of premarital sexual experiences, and nearly 75 percent had had multiple marriages ending in divorce or separation.

12
. Colin A. Ross, “Childhood Sexual Abuse and Psychosomatic Symptoms in Irritable Bowel Syndrome,”
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse,
vol. 14, no. 1 (2005), pp. 27–38; P. Salmon, K. Skaife, and J. Rhodes, “Abuse, Dissociation, and Somatization in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Towards an Explanatory Model,”
Journal of
Behavioral Medicine,
vol. 26, no. 1 (Feb. 2003), pp. 1–18; Sarah Payne, “Sex, Gender, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Making the Connections,”
Gender Medicine,
vol. 1, no. 1 (Aug. 2004), pp. 18–28; J. M. Lackner, G. D. Gudleski, and E. B. Blanchard, “Beyond Abuse: The Association Among Parenting Style, Abdominal Pain, and Somatization in IBS Patients,”
Behaviour Research and Therapy,
vol. 42, no. 1 (Jan. 2004), pp. 41–56; D. A. Drossman, Y. Ingel, B. A. Vogt, J. Leserman, W. Lin, J. K. Smith, and W. Whitehead, “Alterations of Brain Activity Associated with Resolution of Emotional Distress and Pain in a Case of Severe Irritable Bowel Syndrome,”
Gastroenterology,
vol. 124, no. 3 (Mar. 2003), pp. 754–61; A. Ali, B. B. Toner, N. Stuckless, R. Gallop, N. E. Diamant, M. I. Gould, and E. I. Vidins, “Emotional Abuse, Self-Blame, and Self-Silencing in Women with Irritable Bowel Syndrome,”
Psychosomatic Medicine,
vol. 62, no. 1 (Jan.–Feb. 2000), pp. 76–82.

13
. “The differences in body image scores between the body-exterior cancer group and the body-interior cancer group seem to reflect basic differences in personality orientation.” S. Fisher and S. E. Cleveland, “Relationship of Body Image to Site of Cancer,”
Psychosomatic Medicine,
vol. 18, no. 4 (1956), p. 309.

14
. Tarlau and Smalheiser, “Personality Patterns.”

15
. J. I. Wheeler and B. M. Caldwell, “Psychological Factors in Breast Cancer: A Preliminary Study of Some Personality Trends in Patients with Cancer of the Breast,”
Psychosomatic Medicine,
vol. 17 (1955), p. 96; A. H. Labrum, “Psychological Factors in Gynecologic Cancer,”
Primary Care,
vol. 3, no. 4 (1976), pp. 811–24.

Chapter 5

1
. M. Xiaolong et al., “Endometrial Regenerative Cells: A Novel Stem Cell Population,”
Journal of Translational Medicine,
vol. 5 (2007), p. 57.

2
. E. Hartman, “Dreaming Sleep (the D State) and the Menstrual Cycle,”
Journal of
Nervous and Mental Disease,
vol. 143 (1966), pp. 406–16; E. M. Swanson and D. Foulkes, “Dream Content and the Menstrual Cycle,”
Journal of Nervous and
Mental Disease,
vol. 145, no. 5 (1968), pp. 358–63.

3
. F. A. Brown, “The Clocks: Timing Biological Rhythms,”
American Scientist,
vol. 60 (1972), pp. 756–66; M. Gauguelin, “Wrangle Continues of Pseudoscientific Nature of Astrology,”
New Scientist,
Feb. 25, 1978; W. Menaker, “Lunar Periodicity in Human Reproduction: A Likely Unit of Biological Time,”
American
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
vol. 77, no. 4 (1959), pp. 904–14; E. M. Dewan, “On the Possibility of the Perfect Rhythm Method of Birth Control by Periodic Light Stimulation,”
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
vol. 99, no. 7 (1967), pp. 1016–19.

4
. R. P. Michael, R. W. Bonsall, and P. Warner, “Human Vaginal Secretion and Volatile Fatty Acid Content,”
Science,
vol. 186 (1974), pp. 1217–19; W. B. Cutler, “Human Sex-Attractant Pheromones: Discovery Research, Development, and Application in Sex Therapy,”
Psychiatric Annals,
vol. 29 (1999), pp. 54–59.

5
. Charles Wira, “Mucosal Immunity: The Primary Interface Between the Patient and the Outside World,” in “The ABC’s of Immunology,” course syllabus, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, September 20–21, 1996.

6
. E. Hampson and D. Kimura, “Reciprocal Effects of Hormonal Fluctuations on Human Motor and Perceptual Skills,”
Behavioral Neuroscience,
vol. 102 (1988), pp. 456–59.

7
. Wira, “Mucosal Immunity.”

8
. Demetra George,
Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark
Goddess
(HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), pp. 70–71.

9
. W. Menaker, “Lunar Periodicity in Human Reproduction: A Likely Unit of Biological Time,”
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
vol. 77, no. 4 (1959), pp. 904–14.

10
. Lunar data adapted from Caroline Myss.

11
. Hartman, “Dreaming Sleep,” and Swanson and Foulkes, “Dream Content.”

12
. M. Altemus, B. E. Wexler, and N. Boulis, “Neuropsychological Correlates of Menstrual Mood Changes,”
Psychosomatic Medicine,
vol. 51 (1989), pp. 329–36.

13
. Therese Benedek and Boris Rubenstein, “Correlations Between Ovarian Activity and Psychodynamic Processes: The Ovulatory Phase,”
Psychosomatic Medicine,
vol. 1, no. 2 (1939), pp. 245–70.

14
. Bernard C. Gines, “Cultural Hypnosis of the Menstrual Cycle,”
New Concepts of
Hypnosis
(London: George Allen Press, 1953).

15
. Diane Ruble, “Premenstrual Symptoms: A Reinterpretation,”
Science,
vol. 197 (July 15, 1977), pp. 291–92.

16
. For further information, see Riane Eisler,
The Chalice and the Blade: Our History,
Our Future
(HarperSanFrancisco, 1988) and Marija Gimbutas,
Goddesses and
Gods of Old Europe, 7000 to 35 B.C.
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982). The degradation of women’s wisdom took place gradually. By the time European settlers arrived in what would become the United States, native tribes were mixed in their approach to women. Some degraded them and their bodily processes, setting them apart in shame, while others revered women’s wisdom.

17
. T. Buckley, “Menstruation and the Power of Yurok Women,” in T. Buckley and A. Gottlieb, eds.,
Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998), p. 190.

18
. Credit for the term
offices of womanhood
goes to Tamara Slayton. See also Brooke Medicine Eagle, “Women’s Moontime: A Call to Power,”
Shaman’s Drum,
vol. 4 (Spring 1986), p. 21.

19
. Lara Owen,
Her Blood Is Gold: Celebrating the Power of Menstruation
(Wim-borne, UK: Archive Publishing, 2009).

20
. P. L. Brown and W. M. O’Neil, cited in P. Shuttle and P. Redgrove,
The Wise
Wound
(New York: Grove, 1986).

21
. Quoted by Dr. Ronald Norris at lecture on PMS (Rockland, ME, Nov. 1982).

22
. R. Loudall, P. Snow, and J. Johnson, “Myths About Menstruation: Victims of Our Folklore,”
International Journal of Women’s Studies,
vol. 1 (1984), p. 70; W. M. O’Neil,
Time and the Calendars
(Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1976); P. L. Brown,
Megaliths, Myths and Men: An Introduction to Astro-
Archeology
(London: Blandford Press, 1976).

23
. Giovanni Maciocia,
Obstetrics and Gynecology in Chinese Medicine
(New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1998), p. 310.

24
. Ibid., p. 236.

25
. Ibid., p. 53.

26
. Dr. John Goodrich, lecture on adolescent gynecology, Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME, July 29, 1992.

27
. Quoted from Tampax box insert, given to me by Gina Orlando.

28
. Anna Yang, “Reflection on SMCR Conference,”
The Red Web Foundation
Newsletter,
vol. 6, no. 19 (Summer 2009).

29
. A. H. DeCherney, “Hormone Receptors and Sexuality in the Human Female,”
Journal of Women’s Health and Gender-Based Medicine,
vol. 9, supplement 1 (2000), pp. S9–13.

30
. For an in-depth discussion of postpartum sexuality, please see my book
Mother-
Daughter Wisdom
(New York: Bantam Books, 2005), pp. 99–100.

31
. W. B. Cutler, “Human Sex-Attractant Pheromones: Discovery, Research, Development, and Application in Sex Therapy,”
Psychiatric Annals,
vol. 29 (1999), pp. 54–59.

32
. M. K. McClintock, “Menstrual Synchrony and Suppression,”
Nature,
vol. 299 (1971), pp. 244–45.

33
. M. C. P. Rees, A. Anderson, et al., “Prostaglandins in Menstrual Fluid in Menorrhagia and Dysmenorrhea,”
British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
vol. 91 (1984), p. 673.

34
. Kim Dirke et al., “The Influence of Dieting on the Menstrual Cycle of Healthy Young Women,”
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism,
vol. 60, no. 6 (1985), pp. 1174–79.

35
. R. A. DeFronzo, “The Triumvirate: B-Cell, Muscle, Liver: A Collusion Responsible for NIDDM,”
Diabetes,
vol. 37 (1983), pp. 667–87; G. W. Mitchell and J. Rogers, “The Influence of Weight Reduction on Amenorrhea in Obese Women,”
New England Journal of Medicine,
vol. 249 (1953), pp. 835–37.

36
. K. M. Fairfield, D. J. Hunter, G. A. Colditz, C. S. Fuchs, D. W. Cramer, F. E. Speizer, W. C. Willett, and S. E. Hankinson, “A Prospective Study of Dietary Lactose and Ovarian Cancer,”
International Journal of Cancer,
vol. 110, no. 2 (June 10, 2004), pp. 271–77.

37
. G. E. Abraham, “Nutritional Factors in the Etiology of the Premenstrual Tension Syndromes,”
Journal of Reproductive Medicine,
vol. 28, no. 7 (1983), pp. 446–64.

38
. D. Mills, “The Nutritional Status of the Endometriosis Patient,” Institute for Optimum Nutrition project, Sept. 1991, reported in Nance Edwards Merrill,
Endometriosis
Association Newsletter,
vol. 17, nos. 5–6 (1996).

39
. D. M. Lithgow and W. M. Polizer, “Vitamin A in the Treatment of Menorrhagia,”
South African Medical Journal,
vol. 51 (1977), p. 191.