Visualizing the different expressions of these fears in different cultural levels she ventures an interesting hypothesis on a possible connection between the psychic effect of menstruation and the medieval belief in witches certainly there are striking similarities between the psychic disturbances of menstruating women and the qualities attributed to witches as well as between the evil influences attributed to both yet methodological reasoning has shown that conclusions built only on the . It is the authors purpose to determine the psychologic mechanisms associated with menstruation by a research into the symptoms which arise or become aggravated during the monthly period by a study of the associated phenomena of transference by an analysis of the dreams and fantasies which appear at that time and by a survey of the sociologic influences affecting the menstruating girl. Another interpretation of womens psychological reaction to menstruation is that losing blood in the menstrual cycle is equivalent to losing a child deutsch believes that all women desire to be mothers therefore each menstruation is a continual reminder that a woman has failed to become pregnant delaney et a 1976 this theory is surprisingly restated by various analysts among them erik erikson who writes in his famous essay womanhood and the inner space that a woman is most . Karen horney in 1976 contended that learning about menstruation from an embarrassed or worried mother could create a negative reaction in the daughter and that mothers who fear and resent