Finally, a world first PMDD Treatment App. Literally millions of women worldwide suffer immensely every month with this debilitating condition. Most cant access effective treatment due to a severe shortfall in clinicians who are knowledgeable in treatment options for PMDD. This app will provide some desperately needed help to women with PMDD, diagnosed or undiagnosed.
Sharryn Muir, a clinical psychologist, specialises in treating PMDD. She has expert knowledge based on years of treating this condition and her own lived experience.
This app essentially replicates what Sharryn does with her clients in therapy sessions.
The app is composed of valuable insights and knowledge Sharryn has learnt from her personal experience, working with clients and working closely with experts in PMDD including psychiatry, endocrinology and research.
Skills
The treatment component of the app provides you with 23 ‘Skills’ that are specifically for treating PMDD. The skills include distress tolerance, emotion regulation and mindfulness. They are chosen to address the intense distress and dysregulated mood and behaviour experienced in PMDD.
Before learning the skills you will identify several ‘target behaviours’. These are behaviours that typically occur for you in the luteal phase of your menstrual cycle that you want to stop. Examples include yelling at others, thought spirals of worthlessness or hopelessness, inappropriate workplace behaviour and creating interpersonal conflict. You’ll learn skills to help you resist engaging in these behaviours.
The skills teach you to tolerate and regulate the intense emotions rather than regrettably act on them.
Many skills are provided, as each woman finds a particular set of skills personally effective. Some women internalise their intense distress and dont ‘externalise’ with problematic behaviours. These women greatly benefit from distress tolerance skills, finding relief in reducing, calming and tolerating their intensity.
The skills are drawn from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and adapted to the symptoms of PMDD in the luteal phase of a womans cycle. Typically, Sharryn introduces one or two skills in an in-person therapy session. After learning a skill, you will practice it cycle after cycle until it becomes automatic.
Resources
Sharryn provides comprehensive information on the current understandings of what causes PMDD, her personal journey and recovery, information to use with partners, and information to give to your medical doctor or therapist.
Five sections
Introduction
Getting ready
Monitoring
Skills
Resources
By working through each section in the order they are presented, you will become empowered by understanding what PMDD is and how to manage the symptoms.
This app is comprehensive - you can benefit quickly, and will continue to learn and benefit over many months. This reflects the typical course of in-person therapy for PMDD.
Features
* 23 brief ‘skill’ tutorials delivered as video with accompanying written component.
* Monitoring sheet with text and video instructions on monitoring the problematic PMDD behaviours you want to change.
* Sharryn’s personal PMDD journey and recovery.
* Links to websites for medical treatments.
* Role play of an introduction to a therapy session.
* Information on self-administered trauma processing.
* A letter to your partner. PMDD significantly impacts on partners.
* Education for partners on PMDD.
App users can email Sharryn with questions or feedback. Sharryn will deliver responses to frequently asked questions about using the app on her YouTube channel, an additional forum for PMDD support.
Sharryn Muir http://www.northernpsychology.org/sharryn-muir