Reframing Women's Health: Tension and Paradox in Framing Interstitial Cystitis

Abstract

Interstitial cystitis (IC) is a relatively rare but probably underdiagnosed condition that affects 10 times more women than men. As a paradigm case, IC represents many of the difficulties associated with the disease model, particularly when applied to a poorly understood phenomenon. The author briefly describes IC and its relationship to assumptions about chronic pain, female pelvic pain, and somatization disorder. The implications of either ignoring or assuming psychologic factors in the development of IC are explored to illustrate the tension and paradox inherent in adopting holistic models for women's health.