Women “On the Fringe”

Therapists working in university mental health clinics or other agencies dealing with young female adults may have noted a life style of a particular kind of patient who does not fit into previously described diagnostic categories. The patient comes to treatment expressing mild to moderate dissatisfaction with one or more aspects of her life situation. This includes the quality of academic functioning, marital and/or social relations, and a rather vague discontentment with her way of life, rather than any specific symptoms. In addition to these complaints, the patient appears clinically as mildly depressed. As students, they are chronic class droppers or incompleters, in contrast to those who fail because of inability to concentrate or lack of sufficient intelligence. As wives they may complain of frigidity or other sexual disturbances, but more frequently their complaint concerns their partner's disinclination to attend to them or give them affection. They complain that life is without meaningful goals and present this as an existential problem.

These patients live around campuses in inexpensive, simple apartments and are part of a larger society made up of individuals like themselves. The university is the center of their world. They use its facilities freely; they interact with students and faculty, and at times even study there. They drift aimlessly at the periphery of a world centered at the university and in this sense are “fringe people.”

In manner, dress, and attitudes, there is a striking uniformity to these women. They dress with tasteless simplicity, yet have none of