The Wrong Prescription for Women: How Medicine and Media Create a "Need" for Treatments, Drugs, and Surgery

This groundbreaking book challenges the medicalized approach to women's experiences including menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause and suggests that there are better ways for women to cope with real issues they may face. • Addresses popular topics including the "thin ideal," the health realities of weight, cosmetic surgery, birth as a medical emergency, sexual desire and menopause, depression, and mourning • Critiques the "science" and marketing that sees all women's complaints as symptoms, diseases, and dysfunctions requiring medical treatment • Explains how psychological and social factors affect women's health and argues for a more well-founded approach such as using talk therapy first • Explains why events like menopause, sexual desire, body dissatisfaction, and grief are examples of issues often not best treated with drugs, but with psychotherapy for permanent resolution • Will appeal to all adult women who might, or do, question current medical approaches and media promises