D O YO UR BIR T H C ONT R OL PIL L S AF F E C T YO U R MENTAL HEALTH AND BEHAVIOR? An Interview With Sarah Hill, PhD
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woman goes to her gynecologist for contraceptive protection. She is examined and prescribed a particular birth control pill. The gynecologist probably also gives her some instructions for taking this medication and then says, “Do you have any questions for me?” And of course, she probably does have some questions—good questions that deserve thorough answers—but unless she prepared a list in advance, then she probably can’t come up with them all on the spot. So instead she says, “No, I think that answers everything,” and she goes on her way. A couple months pass by when something happens that she didn’t expect. After taking the birth control for a while, she starts to notice some changes. For example, maybe she feels like she is “in a fog,” more depressed, or unable to control her emotions. She wonders if this might have something to do with her new birth control pills, but here’s another unanticipated
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hurdle: She also finds herself hesitant to even ask about this and question her doctor’s decisions. After all, isn’t the birth control pill widely hailed as some sort of revolutionary game changer for women everywhere? Today, I have the honor of seeking answers to these questions from Dr. Sarah Hill, an expert in women’s health and sexual psychology. A psychology professor at Texas Christian University, Dr. Hill received her PhD in 2006 at The University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of This Is Your Brain on Birth Control, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Scientific American, The Washington Post, Today, and many others. Dr. Hill has spent most of her career studying women and health hormones. She even published research on the effects of women’s hormones on their psychology and decision making. And yet, like many women, it never occurred to her that her hormonal birth control might be influencing her brain too!
When she went off of hormonal birth control after almost 12 years, she felt as if she woke up from a dream. She says, “I felt deeper, brighter, I was more vibrant, more energetic—I just felt like a different person. And as I was experiencing this shift from a one-dimensional, black-andwhite drawing to a vibrant, 3D color, animated world, I started researching if leaving my birth control pill was responsible for this change.” Dr. Hill explored the research literature at that time and learned that hormonal birth control can have a full range of psychological effects on women that she had no idea was even possible. Just as surprising, this information wasn’t readily available to women, so she decided to “take that into her own hands” by writing an entire book on the subject. Her goal of this publication and her related efforts is simple: to inform women about the range of effects from the birth control pill so that they can weigh the costs and benefits of each type of birth control strategy.
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Bradley Cannon Psi Chi Central Office
