Minor organic signs.

Abstract

In this respect, I will focus on two of the issues raised in the paper: the over-prescription of drugs and the "blaming" of mothers. It comes as no surprise to hear that general practitioners have little time to devote to listening to the problems of their female (or male) patients. It does not follow, however, that the only factor involved in over-prescription is a lack of understanding. The other side of the coin involves the woman herself her particular psychodynamics and often her demands for immediate symptom relief. Society also partly contributes to this. A woman is bombarded all day with commercial messages that have not only shown that there is a rapid solution to every problem of daily living, but that have also created the myth that the world should be a clean, sterile place where everything is in order (there are no germs in the garbage, the floors are always shining, and so forth). Not only should the environment be perfect, but it is assumed that it is the woman's job to maintain this state of perfection. In such a system, there is very little tolerance for anything negative (dirty) which must immediately be corrected by the magic product eliminating all evil. Much the same is carried over on an emotional levelwhen women come asking for a pill which will make them able to cope with the pressures of daily life. This is, of course, not a complete explanation of this complex phenomenon, but illustrates one way in which environment and dynamics interact to produce a given situation. Motherhood is another topic which has aroused increasing interest in the last decades as we begin to look more at child development. Dr. Stephenson's statement that everything is blamed on mothers is not an accurate reflection of our current state of knowledge. We know from Chess's work that children's temperamental variables are important and from Rutter, that "mothers" are not necessarily the biological mothers, but whoever the child