Women and the Ownership of PMS: The Structuring of a Psychiatric Disorder

This is the first book-length account of the controversy preceding and following the APA’s decision in 1986 to include a premenstrually related diagnosis in its revised diagnostic manual, DSM III-R. Figert examines why the decision was controversial and consequential in three main domains where people, their interests, and claims to ownership coincide: the Health and Mental Health Domain, the Woman Domain, and the Science Domain.