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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

[Living hysteria--hysteria in every day life and asyum psychiatry around 1900].

Hysteria has been mostly analysed with reference to the medical and intellectual discourse. The patient's view (Porter) has been solely included on the basis of published case histories. Historians have focussed particularly on the relation between famous psychiatrists or neurologists and "their" hysterics. The social circumstances of a maid's mental illness in 1913 are reconstructed. The servant Grete K. was admitted to the Landesheilanstalt Marburg (asylum of Marburg) with the diagnosis of "depressive hysteria". Her hysterical malady was traced back to her reading of the novel 'Ich lasse dich nicht' ('I won't let you go') written by the popular novelist Hedwig Courths-Mahler in 1912. Physicians and pedagogues at that time uniformly claimed the reading of pulp fiction to be dangerous for the nerves in general. Elaine Showalter has pointed out that in the 19th century hysteria was spread by "media infection". This historical analysis of Grete K.s medical record will seize and improve Showalters suggestion. The analysis of the maid's medical record is a part of a dissertation project on hysteria in every day life and psychiatric practice around 1900. The study has turned the attention on the process of negotiation between psychiatrists and hysterical women.

Female↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Cultural relativity of hysteria as a nosographic entity. Hysteria and antisocial behavior].

In a review of the works of those authors who have dealt with this subject since the 50s, this study aims to consider the influence which certain prejudices and convictions, which are rooted in our culture, may have had on the concept of hysteria, above all with regard to the close correlation which has always been noted between this syndrome and the female sex. While, on the one hand, the analysis of sociocultural factors and of the different roles which have been established for the sexes, may help us to understand some of the peculiarities of this disease, on the other these same observations may induce us to question the existence of hysteria as a differentiated nosographical entity. In this way, for example, in Warner's opinion, a hysterical personality and an anti-social personality become two different phenomenal expressions of a single basic character disorder.

Antisocial Personality Disorder↗
PubMed1981

A neuropsychological study of the stable syndrome of hysteria.

Ten patients with the stable syndrome of hysteria were matched for age, sex, handedness, and full-scale WAIS IQ with ten controls, ten psychotic depressives and ten schizophrenics. All were subjected to an extensive neuropsychological test battery. Compared to the controls, the hysteria group exhibited bifrontal impairment (R = L) and, globally, greater dysfunction of the nondominant hemisphere. A G analysis provided a complete separation between the hysteria and controls. However, a D-index analysis showed that the hysteria group was more impaired than normals and depressives because of greater dysfunction of the dominant hemisphere, whilst schizophrenia showed greater nondominant hemisphere dysfunction than hysteria. Further, a cluster analysis on the 40 subjects produced three clusters: normal controls, depressives, and a schizophrenia-hysteria grouping. These findings are interpreted as suggesting that dominant hemisphere dysfunction is fundamentally related to the syndrome of hysteria and that the dysfunction of the nondominant hemisphere is brought about by associated features: the female excess, the emotional instability and dysphoric mood, the presence of asymmetrical pain, and conversion symptomatology. It is further argued, in view of the familial associations, that hysteria in the female is a syndrome equivalent to psychopathy in the male (who also exhibits dominant hemisphere dysfunction) and might represent in the female a (relatively benign) variant of schizophrenia characterized by imprecise verbal communications, a subtle form of affective incongruity, together with the conversion parameter.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

On the early history of male hysteria and psychic trauma. Charcot's influence on Freudian thought.

This paper discusses the influence of Jean-Martin Charcot's views on Sigmund Freud's early theory of hysteria and the notion of psychical trauma. We consider the early history of both psychical trauma and male hysteria, for in Charcot's view traumatic hysteria and male hysteria are identical. Freud's two 1886 lectures on male hysteria, delivered after his return from Paris, are crucial to the subject because they present Freud's first impressions of Charcot and his teaching. Some of the ideas presented in the two lectures foreshadow Freud's later generalization of the etiological role of trauma and his theory of the role of psychical trauma in the genesis of hysteria; that is, each hysterical symptom is due to a psychical trauma reviving an earlier traumatic event--the so-called principle of deferred action (Nachträglichkeit). Several arguments substantiate the thesis that Freud's notion of psychical (sexual) trauma was developed in reference to Charcot's notion of traumatic hysteria, and that the early psychoanalytic theory of psychical trauma is clearly indebted to Freud's encounter with Charcot's male traumatic hysterical patients. The discussed Freudian development points out the major role of (physical) traumata in eliciting psychopathological pictures and in this way is of definite historical relevance for the present-day discussion on the traumatic nature of the so-called multiple personality syndrome and other dissociative disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorders.

Austria↗
PubMed1980

Hysteria and antisocial personality. A single disorder?

Antisocial personality and hysteria have been thought to represent a single condition. Different clinical presentations for the disorders have been attributed to cultural stereotyping and diagnostic bias. The present study carefully examines detailed psychiatric histories taken from 560 nonpatient university students. Diagnoses of antisocial personality and hysteria are based on the diagnostic criteria for psychiatric research of Feighner et al. Interviewer bias is avoided. Both disorders were present in both sexes. Hysteria was more common for women, whereas antisocial personality occurred more frequently in men. The two disorders presented with nearly equal frequency in men. Hysteria was more frequent and antisocial personality was less frequent in women than in men. The two disorders were associated for women but not for men. Specific symptoms of antisocial personality were associated with hysteria and were identified. Specific symptoms of hysteria were associated with antisocial personality, differed in some respects between men and women, and demonstrated more symptoms of depressive illness for female sociopaths. Antisocial personality, hysteria, and their combinations considered together as a possible single entity occurred with equal frequency for both sexes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Briquet's concept of hysteria: an historical perspective.

Paul Briquet's Traité de l'Hystérie was published in 1859 and is a comprehensive clinical and epidemiological study of 430 patients with hysteria. It was widely known and quoted in its time, but was submerged by the rise of the psychoanalytic concept of hysteria at the end of the 19th century. Briquet's work was resurrected in 1971 with the recommendation that the term Briquet's Syndrome be used for certain forms of hysteria. This paper translates into English those sections of his monograph devoted to his concept of hysteria and discusses these in an historical framework. Briquet regarded hysteria as a "Neurosis of the Brain" in which a variety of unpleasant environmental events acted upon the "affective part of the brain" in a susceptible and predisposed individual. He considered the brain to be the "seat of hysteria" because it was the source of the multiple manifestations of the condition. Amongst its many other notable contributions, Briquet's study finally laid to rest hysteria's historic association with physical disease of the female genitalia.

Female↗
PubMed1976

Nervousness and hysteria of mature female chickens.

A type of abnormal nervousness and hysteria, e.g., adding nests and perches to community cages and and hysteria affecting White Leghorn female chickens 35 or more weeks of age was investigated in nine experiments. Experimental flocks in which the malady consistently occurred were housed in large group (community) cages. Limited information was obtained on three cases in commercial flocks housed on the floor. Social pressure resulting from high population density appeared to be primary causative factor, with pain apparently contributing to the final break to hysteria. Claw removal at one day of age prevented hysteria but not nervousness in one experiment. Colored light, feeding added niacin or a mild tranquilizer were not successful preventives. Short term feeding of a high level of niacin, claw trimming and forced molting afforded relief in some cases while a heavy sedative was ineffective as a curative. Modification of the environment to reduce social pressure was successful in preventing nervousness and hysteria, e.g., adding nests and perches to community cages and moving flocks to less crowded housing. Strain differences in tendency to develop hysteria were demonstrated. There were positive indications of physiological changes associated with hysteria.

Animals↗
PubMed1999

[The debate over "hysteria"].

The debate on hysteria at the "Société de Neurologie" in 1908 signed the official death certificate for Charcot's hysteria, which even in his day had started to come under attack. The article by Babinski in 1901 had delivered the "coup de grâce". The debate paints an astonishing picture of the medical world of the day, and also of hysteria, which would never again present the spectacular clinical picture seen up to that point. Babinski, dominating the debate with his strong personality, prevented a discussion on the mental basis for hysteria, requested by several participants, in favour of pithiatism, which in his view offered an acceptable definition of hysteria. It is surprising that more was not made of the contradiction in terms in the expression "auto-suggestion", and of the fact that Babinski was begging the question when he asserted that it could not be asserted that a patient had been subject to suggestion! This debate effectively banished hysteria from the columns of the neurological press, whose pages it had tended to overburden. It cannot however be blamed for not having made a positive contribution to our understanding of this neurosis which, even today, remains enigmatic. It does our Society credit to have ruled out "for ethical reasons" the hypothesis of simulation.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Mass hysteria: two syndromes?

On the basis of a literature review it is concluded that mass hysteria can be divided into two syndromes. One form, to be called 'mass anxiety hysteria', consists of episodes of acute anxiety, occurring mainly in schoolchildren. Prior tension is absent and the rapid spread is by visual contact. Treatment consists of separating the participants and the prognosis is good. The second form, to be called 'mass motor hysteria', consists of abnormalities in motor behaviour. It occurs in any age group and prior tension is present. Initial cases can be identified and the spread is gradual. Treatment should be directed towards the underlying stressors but the outbreak may be prolonged. In mass anxiety hysteria the abnormality is confined to group interactions; in mass motor hysteria abnormal personalities and environments are implicated.

Anxiety Disorders↗