When a fortnight of every month doesn't feel like it belongs to you.

Most women with PMDD have been told some version of "everyone gets a bit premenstrual" by more than one health professional. Australian research published this year found that people seeking help for PMDD had seen an average of five different practitioners on the way to a diagnosis, and that more than half described being disbelieved or misdiagnosed along the way. Psychologists, notably, were rated as less aware of PMDD than psychiatrists or gynaecologists.

One of my special interest areas is PMDD. Not only because I have PMDD myself but I believe there is so much hope and scope for symptom improvement with a holistic, multi-faceted approach.

What we can work on together:

• Clarifying diagnoses if you’re still confused as to what’s behind your symptoms, making sense of the pattern, and tracking it properly so you are empowered with knowledge. Heightening your self-awareness so it stops being a surprise

• What to do with the luteal phase — practically, in your actual life and relationships

• Learn invaluable tools to reduce the impact that despair, anxiety depression, rage and self-loathing have on you and your life

• Repairing what happens to relationships when two weeks of every month are hard

• Working with your inner world to retain connection with your true self when PMDD would usually take over. Rebuilding trust in your own mind when it changes character monthly

• Healing any trauma that may be amplifying your PMDD (and vice versa) or may have come from years of not being believed, which is often its own injury

What therapy can and can't do here

PMDD has a biological basis and psychological therapy is not a cure for it. What therapy can do is reduce how much damage the difficult fortnight does — to your sense of yourself, your relationships, your work — and give you something to do with it other than endure it. Medical management sits with your GP, psychiatrist or gynaecologist, and I'll work alongside them.