What is the Menopause for Psychologists? A Clinical Psychology Podcast Episode.

Over the past few months, I've become more and more aware of how the menopause can impact mental health. Not because I experience it, but through listening to women, my family and seeing the menopause gain more representation in the media and crime drama. Since the menopause can create brain fog, decrease work performance and it can make women feel like they're going insane. Therefore, in this clinical psychology podcast episode, you'll learn what the menopause is, how the menopause impacts women's mental health and more. As well as I'll also talk about the implications for aspiring educational and clinical psychologists too. If you enjoy learning about mental health, business psychology and how psychology can be used in the real world to help others, then this will be a great episode for you. 

Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Biological Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

Why Should Psychologists Be Aware of the Menopause?

Psychologists should be aware of the menopause because this normal biological process that females go through has a wide range of impacts on their mental health. For example, during the menopause, people can experience feelings of emptiness or numbness, anger, depression, anxiety, they can experience brain fog and suicidal feelings as well as sleeping problems. I’ve previously discussed on the podcast how sleep is critical for our mental health. Therefore, because of the wide range of mental health impacts of the menopause, aspiring and qualified psychologists need to be aware, so we can support our clients who are going through the menopause.

Later in the podcast episode, we’ll explore how the menopause can impact mental health in more depth. As well as in two sections’ time, I’ll explain some more situations where the menopause can impact our psychological work.

What is the Menopause?

The menopause is the time when periods stop and people can no longer naturally get pregnant, and this leads to a wide range of positive and negative impacts on our mind and body. Also, it’s important to talk about the menopause because whilst there are some symptoms that are very well-known, like a hot flush, there are other symptoms that aren’t as well-known.

In addition, menopause can impact a person for years before their periods fully end. As well as some people might not notice the effects of the menopause whereas other people can find them really difficult to handle and this can lead to negative mental health outcomes. This is why it’s important to be aware of the menopause, know the symptoms and understand that experiencing the menopause will get better over time with the right support as well as treatment.

Furthermore, in terms of who experiences the menopause, it commonly impacts females in their 40s and 50s. As well as it is possible to have early onset menopause, which is when your periods stop before the age of 45, or late onset menopause. This is when your periods stop after the age of 55.

On a final introductory note, I want to mention that the reason why I’m trying to be gender-inclusive when it comes to the menopause is because trans and non-binary people can also go through the menopause depending on their age, the biological sex they were assigned at birth, any hormone treatments that they’ve taken in the past or currently taking as well as if they’ve had any gender-affirming surgeries or treatments.

This is important to note because experiencing the menopause can be even more distressing for transgender and non-binary people because it might increase feelings of gender dysphoria and the associated negative mental health impacts. As well as treatment and support for the menopause when you’re transgender can be even more difficult because the services might not meet your needs or they aren’t inclusive.

Examples of Why Psychologists Knowing About Menopause is Important

Building upon this, I wanted to expand the section above on why knowing about the menopause should be important for aspiring and qualified psychologists. Firstly, when it comes to the psychologist themselves, and if they’re female, then we need to understand, be compassionate and be supportive if menopause symptoms impact their work. For example, the psychologist might be with a client, representing the mental health service at an important meeting or chairing a multidisciplinary team meeting and experience a hot flush. This will distract the psychologist, make the work feel unbearable and hot flushes are some of the worst things women can experience.

When this happens to a peer or someone in our mental health service, we shouldn’t judge them, or stop them from doing their duties, because we need to support them. Some people might argue that if a woman is experiencing the menopause then they shouldn’t be in high-power positions. However, this thinking isn’t supportive, it isn’t compassionate and this view is outdated. Instead we need to support the psychologist so they can manage the menopause, continue their work and protect their mental health.

In addition, if we apply my favourite psychological theory to this situation, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, then where we’re working in a school or mental health service, how we treat someone experiencing the menopause will impact our client. If management (a social system that indirectly impacts a client) takes a decision that doesn’t support women in the workplace because of the menopause, then this will have a negative impact on the service’s ability to deliver treatment and support our client.

This is why we need to be aware and supportive of people experiencing the menopause.

A penultimate example is when it comes to our clients themselves. We might have a client who is struggling at work, feeling depressed, anxious and they’re experiencing a lot of brain fog because they’re experiencing the menopause. If the psychologist is young, male and has no knowledge of the menopause then we might give them the wrong support, make the wrong referral and negatively impact the client’s treatment without even realising it. As well as knowledgeable about the menopause can be immensely helpful for the management of mental health services, because if a client comes to us with menopausal symptoms, then typically we might be able to send the client back to the doctor, hope the doctor gives them Hormone Replacement Therapy and the client’s life will be a lot better. This frees up the service to see someone new and it helps to reduce the waiting list, it means the service doesn’t have to spend time or money treating that person and we still get to improve the client’s life.

A final example of why it’s important for psychologists to know about the menopause is for educational psychologists. Since if an educational psychologist was at a school for a situation along the lines of classroom management, behavioural interventions or essentially anything. Then they might notice that students and other staff members comment on a change in the teacher’s behaviour. They’ve been less able to focus, they’ve been snappier with the students and they’re struggling to get tasks done. Also, senior management has given the teacher two written warnings. All of these behaviours around the teacher have an impact on the school system and the different ecological systems that a child interacts with according to Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory. As a result, an educational psychologist would find it useful to know about the menopause because it would help the educational psychologist understand the behaviour, explain the situation to senior management and might be able to help the teacher so the disruption to the school system could be fixed.

Just a thought.

What are the Stages of Menopause?

The menopause happens in three different stages and these stages impact people differently. For example, perimenopause is the stage before you’ve stopped having periods for one year but you’re experiencing symptoms of the menopause. A person can be in perimenopause for several years. Then you have the menopause and this is when you completely stop having your periods for a year.

In addition, whilst menopause only lasts for a single day, it is often used as an umbrella term to describe the whole time that you’re experiencing symptoms of the perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause. As well as post-menopause is the term for the time after menopause and you might experience symptoms of the menopause but typically they get better over time.

These stages are important for psychologists to be aware of because the mental and physical health symptoms of menopause can start during perimenopause. As well as this is when it’s typically the hardest time to cope with these changes and symptoms, so this is when the person is most likely to need mental health support and this is where psychologists might come in.

Finally for this section, a person might feel like their experiences couldn’t possibly be menopause until their periods have stopped completely, and sadly some doctors have this attitude too. Yet it’s important for all of us to acknowledge that your physical and mental health can still be harmed by the menopause even if your periods haven’t stopped yet for one full year.

Why Does Menopause Impact Mental Health?

In the future, I’ll dedicate an entire podcast episode to this question, but the menopause impacts mental health because during the menopause, people’s hormone levels change a lot. Since during perimenopause, our bodies decrease its production of testosterone, progesterone as well as oestrogen. Our brain needs all of these hormones to work effectively, because it is these hormones that help us to improve our mood and think clearly, as well as they interact with the hormones, dopamine and serotonin in the brain.

As a result, when these three hormones decrease in the body, our brain might not work how it used to, and this is why brain fog and other mental health symptoms occur during the menopause. It is these hormonal changes that lead to changes in how we behave, think and feel.

Furthermore, the reason why the physical and mental health symptoms are more severe during the perimenopause is because our hormone levels change constantly and, so people feel these effects more during this stage of menopause. The hormone levels are constantly going up and down.

Another reason why menopause can impact mental health is because the physical effects of menopause can be upsetting, uncomfortable and painful. Some of the physical effects of menopause include, reduced sex drive, vaginal pain and dryness, sensitive teeth, headaches and migraines, hot flushes, sleeping problems and more. Also, I want to take a moment to add that to some people a reduced sex drive might not sound like a problem, but sexual difficulties can impact romantic relationships, and I’ve heard accounts of people feeling like there’s a barrier between them and their partner because of menopause.

You could argue that this is another reason why couples therapists and other mental health professionals should be aware of the menopause. Knowledge about this experience would help the therapist or professional understand what the client is going through, how this could impact the relationship and they might be able to suggest some menopause-specific techniques that might help the relationship.

A final reason why the menopause can impact mental health is because these massive physical changes occur at a time in our lives when we’re already experiencing a lot of changes in our lives. For example, perhaps the change in your physical health, you becoming a grandparent, you transitioning into a new career or you’re preparing for retirement or one of the thousands of other transitions that are just a part of everyday life. Yet when we add the difficulties and challenges of the menopause, then this can make life feel overwhelming, difficult and just impossible to cope with in addition to everything else.

This all takes a toll on our mental health.

How Is Stigma Connected to The Menopause?

The final topic I want to look at in this introductory podcast episode to the menopause for psychologists is the stigma behind menopause. Therefore, stigma connects to the menopause because menopause isn’t something that people take seriously, often people joke about or trivialise it. Since people don’t understand how painful, distressing and uncomfortable the physical and mental health symptoms of the menopause are.

In addition, attitudes towards the menopause are typically ageist as well as sexist, and they feed into the rubbish cultural narrative that women have less value as they get older. When we combine these awful cultural attitudes to the equally awful and outrageous myths about women are just weak and hysterical, this means that women are less likely to be taken seriously when they want support for the menopause.

All these factors help to contribute to the unfortunate stigma that surrounds menopause, even though it is a perfectly normal biological process.

What makes this even worse for people experiencing the menopause is that medical doctors don’t get enough training about the menopause, and I would add that psychologists receive none at all, as well as research into the menopause is limited. This all prevents us learning about the impact of treatment, how to support people with menopause better and how to create a better society for people going through the menopause.

Moreover, it gets even worse when people go to a menopause support group or service because they’re finding it hard to cope, and they don’t have the same access to services or treatment because of stigmatised and discriminatory factors. Since research shows that disabled people, people of colour, people experiencing homelessness, offenders, LGBT+ people, people in poverty as well as people with mental health difficulties are less likely to receive support for the menopause compared to other groups.

This is wrong on so many levels and this is why it is critical that psychologists are aware of the menopause.

Clinical Psychology Conclusion

Our duty as aspiring and qualified psychologists is to make the world a better place. I unofficially have a so-called clinical psychology mandate and for me, the mandate is to help improve people’s lives, decrease psychological distress and give people control of their lives again. Psychologists can do this. We can help people experiencing the distressing, uncomfortable and damaging mental health symptoms of menopause if we become more aware, more understanding and if we focus on it.

If our great profession embeds even a single lecture or module on the menopause in our education programmes, so we can equip aspiring and qualified psychologists with the knowledge, the clinical skills and the psychological treatment ideas to improve the lives of people with the menopause. Then that will be an amazing step in the right direction. It will help us to improve the lives of our clients, it will help to decrease their distress and it will help our clients feel in control of their lives again instead of the menopause running the show.

Just as a little recap, the menopause is the time when periods stop and people can no longer naturally get pregnant, and this leads to a wide range of positive and negative impacts on our mind and body. Also, it’s important to talk about the menopause because whilst there are some symptoms that are very well-known, like a hot flush, there are other symptoms that aren’t as well-known.

In addition, menopause can impact a person for years before their periods fully end. As well as some people might not notice the effects of the menopause whereas other people can find them really difficult to handle and this can lead to negative mental health outcomes. This is why it’s important to be aware of the menopause, know the symptoms and understand that experiencing the menopause will get better over time with the right support as well as treatment.

Let’s make psychology a groundbreaking, inspirational and amazing profession that all other healthcare professionals look to for leading menopause care. It’s a lofty aim but every step we take towards this goal means we can help an amazing amount of people experiencing the menopause.

I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.

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Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading

Brown, L., Hunter, M. S., Chen, R., Crandall, C. J., Gordon, J. L., Mishra, G. D., ... & Hickey, M. (2024). Promoting good mental health over the menopause transition. The Lancet, 403(10430), 969-983.

Hendriks, O., McIntyre, J. C., Rose, A. K., Crockett, C., Newson, L., & Saini, P. (2025). The mental health challenges, especially suicidality, experienced by women during perimenopause and menopause: A qualitative study. Women's Health, 21, 17455057251338941.

Hogervorst, E., Craig, J., & O'Donnell, E. (2022). Cognition and mental health in menopause: a review. Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 81, 69-84.

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/tips-for-everyday-living/menopause-and-mental-health/about-menopause/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/menopause/symptoms/

Lewis Johnson, T., Rowland, L. M., Ashraf, M. S., Clark, C. T., Dotson, V. M., Livinski, A. A., & Simon, M. (2024). Key findings from mental health research during the menopause transition for racially and ethnically minoritized women living in the United States: a scoping review. Journal of Women's Health, 33(2), 113-131.

O'Reilly, K., McDermid, F., McInnes, S., & Peters, K. (2024). “I was just a shell”: Mental health concerns for women in perimenopause and menopause. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 33(3), 693-702.

Riecher-Rössler, A. (2020). Menopause and mental health. In Mental health and illness of women (pp. 147-173). Singapore: Springer Singapore.

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