I've been researching and writing on the subject of women's mental health and wellbeing since the early eighties. In 1981 I wrote about women's emotional conflicts with independence in The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence. The book became a bestseller in this country and was translated into 23 languages. In the 90s, my daughter Gabrielle and I wrote You Mean I Don't Have to Feel This Way?: New Help for Depression, Anxiety and Addiction. This book was the first to explain the biological underpinnings of mood disorders to the lay reader. After its publication we were invited to speak about depression in families at various medical schools, including Johns Hopkins, New York-Cornell, and The New York State Psychiatric Institute. Later in the 90s Bantam published my book Red Hot Mamas: Coming Into Our Own at Fifty. It deals not only with the physical and emotional aspects of menopause and perimenopause, but with the exciting possibilities that lie ahead for women who've arrived at this stage of life.

My intention, with my website is to provide a place where women can inform themselves and get support for their emotional wellbeing and mental health. After 9/11 I began studying to become a psychotherapist. Today, my research and writing on women's mental health is informed by what I learn through my work with patients. At my website, along with information on the social forces that impinge on women's mental health, you'll find a number of pages devoted to the estrogen-serotonin connection to mood swings. This hormone roller coaster can seriously affect women's quality of life. Fortunately, a great deal can be done to smooth the ride.

Biographical Information

New York psychotherapist Colette Dowling is licensed clinical social worker with a graduate degree from The Smith College School for Social Work. She was trained in psychoanalysis at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, in New York.

Colette is the author of many books on women's wellbeing and mental health, including The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence, which was translated into 23 languages. Other books by Colette are: *You Mean I Don't Have to Feel This Way?": New Help for Depression, Anxety and Addiction, * Red Hot Mamas: Coming Into Our Own at Fifty * The Frailty Myth: Redefining the Physical Potential of Women and Girls.

Ms. Dowling has a private psychotherapy practice in Manhattan. Her office in Chelsea is convenient to Brooklyn, Queens, Hoboken and Jersey City. You can reach her at dowlingcolette@earthlink.net, or by calling 718-594-0201.

To hear Colette speaking about what it's like starting therapy with someone new, please click the audio button.

Profiles of Colette's therapy practice are available at:

http://therapist.psychologytoday.com/34706.

OR

http://www.colettedowlingtherapy.com/

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