Menstruation

Menstruation appears in the depth-psychology corpus not as a clinical datum but as a symbolic, ritual, and psychophysiological threshold that organises multiple theoretical concerns simultaneously. The range of treatment is striking: at one pole, Jung observes the ancient association of woman’s lunar cycle with taboo and the moon’s influence on the psyche, locating menstrual periodicity within the archetype of the feminine and its relationship to unconscious rhythm. Neumann situates it within the ‘blood-transformation mysteries’ that define feminine selfhood and the transformative character of the archetypal Great Mother. Von Franz reads its cessation in alchemical imagery as the symbolic arrest of flux prerequisite to the coniunctio. Estés recuperates the black-red-white symbolism of the menstrual-reproductive cycle as the likely empirical source of alchemical colour symbolism, proposing that alchemy itself may be a masculine approximation of uterine process. Hillman references it curtly in a subject index adjacent to misogyny, a placement that itself signals the contested ideological terrain. Daoist internal alchemy in Kohn’s corpus treats the interception of menstrual flow as structurally homologous to semen retention — both constituting an energetic reversal enabling inner transformation. The clinical-psychopharmacological literature (Eng, de Jong, Broughton, Wynchank) marks a contemporary axis, documenting how hormonal flux across the menstrual cycle modulates dopaminergic tone and thus ADHD symptom severity. The corpus thus holds archetype, alchemy, ritual taboo, and neuroscience in unresolved but productive tension.

In the library 13 passages

the black, red, white symbolism derives from the menstrual and reproductive cycle of women… black is representative of the sloughed lining of the uterus… Red symbolizes both the retention of blood… White is the mother’s milk

Estés argues that alchemical colour symbolism derives from observed stages of the menstrual-reproductive cycle, proposing that alchemy is a later symbolic effort to replicate the transformative vessel of the uterus.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph D, Women Who Run With the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild, 2017thesis

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The transformation mysteries of the woman are primarily blood-transformation mysteries that lead her to the experience of her

Neumann identifies menstrual blood as the primary medium of feminine transformation mysteries, grounding the transformative character of the Great Mother archetype in women’s direct bodily experience.

Neumann, Erich, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, 1955thesis

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the cessation of the menstrual flow in women is the same as the retention of the semen in men. In both cases, loss of an essential substance is stopped and with it… the loss of original energy.

In Daoist internal alchemy, intercepting menstrual flow is structurally homologous to semen retention, both constituting a reversal of energetic loss that enables inner alchemical transformation.

Kohn, Livia, Daoism Handbook, 2000thesis

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since menstruation stops when the child is generated, there is the idea that the flow is stopped when the two lights have united and the new light is born.

Von Franz interprets the alchemical cessation of lunar flow as symbolic of menstruation’s arrest at conception, linking the coniunctio to the stopping of feminine flux and the birth of a new unified consciousness.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology, 1980thesis

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woman in her actual physical makeup is in some way related to the moon, with her moon-cycles of menstruation. Thus we find menstrual taboos that have been put upon woman throughout the ages.

Jung situates menstruation within the archetype of the lunar feminine, arguing that the moon’s association with woman’s cyclical physiology is the empirical basis of cross-cultural menstrual taboo.

Jung, C.G., Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930, 1984thesis

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With menstruation a new form of existence sets in… The onset of menstruation stimulates the development of t

Jung’s early experimental work notes that the onset of menstruation activates new psychic processes, correlating physiological change with complex activation and the potential breakthrough of suppressed automatisms.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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In many cultures women withdrew from the general society during menstruation. This allowed them to pay attention to that inner lunar state, and experience the powerful Moon stirrings in a safe environment.

Pollack interprets menstrual withdrawal practices as culturally encoded containers for lunar psychic states, and extends this to the Tarot Moon’s meaning as an invitation to inner attention applicable to all genders.

Pollack, Rachel, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980supporting

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the female does not contribute semen to generation but does contribute the matter of the catamenia [menses]… cessation of menses during pregnancy, indicating that this material was now being used in the building of the embryo

Hillman cites Aristotle’s theory of the catamenia as the historical locus of the demotion of feminine generative contribution, arguing this framing perpetuates a tradition of theorised female inferiority.

Hillman, James, The Myth of Analysis: Three Essays in Archetypal Psychology, 1972supporting

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girls and women with ADHD become more impaired and exhibit higher rates of comorbidity than boys and men, beginning during adolescence and persisting into adulthood

Eng frames the menstrual cycle as a critical but historically neglected modulator of ADHD symptom expression, with hormonal fluctuation across the cycle amplifying impairment in females from adolescence onward.

Eng, Ashley G., Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and the menstrual cycle: Theory and evidence, 2024supporting

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Women’s monthly cycle, with its natural rhythm of emotions, helps us stay in touch with unconscious feelings we might not otherwise know.

Signell positions the menstrual cycle as a natural psychic regulator that grants women recurrent access to unconscious emotional material, framing cyclical release as a resource for self-knowledge.

Signell, Karen A., Wisdom of the Heart: Working with Womens Dreams, 1991supporting

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In the week before, and first days of her menstruation, she noticed less effect of her ADHD medication, a stark decrease in energy and an increase in depressive symptoms.

De Jong documents that the perimenstrual phase reduces the efficacy of psychostimulant medication in women with ADHD, providing clinical evidence for hormonally mediated fluctuation in dopaminergic response across the cycle.

de Jong, M., Female-specific pharmacotherapy in ADHD: premenstrual adjustment of psychostimulant dosage, 2023supporting

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Follicular phase: It describes the first half of the menstrual cycle. It begins with the first day of menstruation and ends with ovulation.

Findeis provides pharmacological framing of the menstrual cycle’s phases as the biological substrate within which psychostimulant efficacy must be understood in women with ADHD.

Findeis, Hannelore, The effects of psychostimulants in menstruating women with ADHD — A gender health gap in ADHD treatmentsupporting

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