Because breast development is dependent upon the normal functioning of these glands, it would not be unusual to find that Betty's breasts were delayed in their development. Indeed, they might never develop fully until this conditioning is altered. She might well have difficulties in her marriage because of pain on intercourse or sexual nonresponsiveness, irregular and troublesome periods, and difficulty, both physical and mental, in bearing and giving birth to children. I find early sexual repression to be a common pattern when the presenting complaints are of this type.

The coherency theory gives us a way to visualize how a gland can be involved in a reflex pattern. At the time when certain stimuli are present and when the tension is felt, incoherent information is being sent to the gland that is being used at the moment, just as it is sent down the nerve to the spastic stomach muscle in the person with an ulcer. This means that repetitions of the same stimuli and emotion on future occasions will cause this reaction to grow stronger and stronger and, as the years pass, the gland will actually begin to become measurably abnormal in its secretions. It is even easier to visualize how when this stress occurs during childhood, while the gland is growing, its development can be influenced.

Like most physicians I have observed the close connection between a person's moods and feelings and the functioning of the endocrine system. Probably most people have known a woman who, fearing pregnancy, has missed her period by one, two, or three weeks, although her period may have been regular until that time. Often she will go to see a physician, fearing pregnancy. When informed that she is not pregnant, it is common for her to begin her period that very day. I feel that many glandular disorders may begin and end in response to stress or relaxation, but because the other glands don't announce their state of activity by such a dramatic and immediate change as menstrual bleeding, the connection is not as readily detected.