Kathryn M. Abel - Böcker

Mood and anxiety disorders in women represent an increasingly important area of research and treatment development. The authors take a broad biopsychosocial and developmental approach to the issues, beginning with anxiety disorders in adolescence and progressing through the life phases of women to menopause and old age. All the disorders are covered, from anxiety and borderline personality disorder to stress and late-life depression. Particular attention is paid to questions of vulnerability; epidemiological and clinical evidence showing gender differences in such disorders; aetiological explanations in terms of biological (including hormonal) as well as psychosocial parameters, and treatment implications.

This is a comprehensive, up-to-date and evidence-based review of women's mental health. It starts by considering the social and cultural contexts of women's lives today before addressing how developmental aspects pertain to mental health, exploring biological, evolutionary and psychosocial parameters. The heart of the book contains a series of chapters with a clinical emphasis. These aim to elucidate causal mechanisms for gender differences in mental disorder considering hormonal and environmental influences. The therapeutic implications of gender are then addressed in some detail, with a focus on inter-partner and other forms of violence, substance misuse, personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. The book concludes with a detailed section considering psychosis and its sequelae in women and their families. The book's scope is intended to be broad, and it is aimed at a clinical audience including psychiatrists and general physicians, as well as mental health nurses, psychologists, social workers and occupational therapists.