This week, Hurried Woman Syndrome made its debut on the growing list of gender-specific medical conditions we need to watch out for. The signs, according to a psychiatrist, are applicable particularly to women who have children between the ages of four and 16.

If you?re a Hurried Woman, you?re always rushed, always overworked, feel guilty about spending time on yourself, and always trying to catch up, whether at the office or at home. We are warned that this can lead to a ?pre-depression? stage.

I would feel a lot better about thinking, ?Yes! That?s me! Someone understands!? if this had been the only Syndrome with a capital S to be ?discovered? in recent years. There was also Body Image Disorder, caused by viewing too many airbrushed pictures of impossibly thin, gorgeous female models in the media. One study reported that 75 per cent of all women in the UK are affected by Body Image Disorder.

Then there was Multitasker?s Syndrome, a close cousin of Hurried Woman Syndrome, caused by women feeling that they had to play too many roles ? wife, mother, sister, daughter, boss, employee, grandmother, you name it and it was there ? and had no room to discover their own identities.

Now, somewhere out there, one of you is shuttling between home and office, trying to squeeze 36 hours out of 24 while worrying about her weight, juggling between being Mommy and Boss, and muttering that you suffer from all three of these Syndromes. For you, a special prayer from all of us. But for the rest of us, a question: how far do you go before you turn your entire life into a Syndrome? And insofar as these conditions affect women, what about the silent stresses that men suffer from? Are we not supposed to discuss those?

I can think of several Syndromes that would fit the male of the species. Distant Father Syndrome, for example, where the man would like to be a better parent but feels that office policies, social structures and traditional masculine roles conspire to keep him less involved with his children than he would like. There?s also Pitt-Clooney Syndrome, which is what happens when the average 40-year-old registers that his pot belly isn?t going away while being bombarded by media images of gorgeous hunks such as Brad Pitt, George Clooney and other compulsively goodlooking men. And Stuck At The Office Syndrome, which is what happens when a guy who might have been better off as a painter or a poet is forced to do a job he secretly loathes because, hey, men are breadwinners, aren?t they?

The problem with too many Syndromes is that they trivialise the issues they?re trying so solemnly to spotlight. And with most pop psychology syndromes, there?s a built-in Catch-22 in terms of finding a solution. The only way you can stop being a Hurried Woman, for example, is by stepping back from your life and deciding to make the changes that would turn you into an Unhurried Woman. And the only way you can do that? You?ll need time. Which is just great, because time by definition is the one thing that Hurried Women aren?t going to have in a hurry!