In Menstruation and Psychoanalysis, Mary Jane Lupton asks why menstruation, in spite of being a recurring and important part of all women's lives, has received so little direct attention in psychoanalytic writings. It is Lupton's thesis that this apparent absence reflects universal repression and taboos, but that menstruation's presence in psychoanalytic thinking is nonetheless veiled and discernible. She argues that ideas about menstruation can be traced in early psychoanalytic theory and infiltrate Freud's dreams and writing.

Lupton begins with a reexamination of Freud's collaborations with Wilhelm Fliess. Menstruation was certainly central in Fliess's psychobiological theories of periodicity, his notions of inevitable rhythms in both men and women based on 23- or 28-day menstrual