PREMENSTRUAL distress is largely a myth, and women who experience it usually have their blokes to blame.

So says Jane Ussher, professor of women's health psychology at the University of Western Sydney, who says couples therapy is a potential treatment for severe cases of premenstrual moodiness.

Illustration: Cathy Wilcox

''The notion that the majority of women are mad or bad once a month is a myth,'' she says.

But doubting the moody blood blues is a hard row to hoe for a female academic. After years of inciting female colleagues to anger by ''denying their experience'', Professor Ussher has carefully honed her argument.