Hysteria Flashcards
In what field did the term ‘Hysteria’ originate?
Hysteria is a concept that originated in Psychiatry and is now a part of common language.
What was another term for ‘hysteria’, back in earlier days? And when was this term coined?
‘Moron’, which was coined during research on intelligence around 1910.
What is a modern example of what could be considered ‘hysteria’? For both girls and boys?
For women: ‘fan-girling’ - over the Beatles, Justin Bieber, etc.
For men: football crowds, when emotions get very high.
One slide in the lecture had a picture from the 1950s of a women in ecstasy holding an apple, what was written under the picture?
Also - what did the apple represent?
‘Hysteria, a psychoneurotic disorder, involving intense emotionalism with various psychic and physical disturbances. It often results from repressed conflicts within the person, and occurs most frequently in young women.’
The apple was quite symbolic in that it represented repressed sexual desire.
Before it was diagnosed in human beings, where was hysteria common?
Give two examples.
It was very common in novels before it was diagnosed in human beings, for example, Anna Karenina & Madame Bovary.
Who was ‘Charlotte’?
Before the common prevalence of ‘hysteria’, Charlotte, a schoolgirl, was seen to have strange behaviour. She looked pale, had lost weight, became unresponsive, but something seemed to bother her.
At a picnic, where everyone was playing, Charlotte was not participating but staring off into the horizon. And then, she started to tremble all over, she was screaming and seemed to have an epileptic fit. She then fell asleep for 24 hours and didn’t remember what was happening. People thought she had experienced some sort of trauma.
When/where did Hysteria first become popular?
In France in the 1880s, before it went over to Vienna where Freud picked it up. Then, it went to London and the US as a very typical condition treated by psychiatrists training in psychoanalysis.
What are three main ideas underlying ‘hysteria’?
- It is a ‘historical disease’: bound to time and place.
- Very clear medical symptom: not just ‘in the head’.
- Nonetheless, it is the enigma of medicine: ‘doctor cannot find anything’.
When Sigmund Freud was visiting Charcot’s clinic, what did he discover about ‘hysteria’?
He believed that ‘hysteria’ behaves as though the nervous system does not exist.
‘Hysteria’ was a fashionable new disease, did arise through a ‘grass-roots’ model, or a ‘hysteria’ model?
And by whom?
It arose through the ‘Hysteria’ model - no surprise there. However, there were people in different areas suffering from similar issues.
Charcot first introduced it, and then others took interest.
Why did ‘hysteria’ become such a popular disorder at the time?
Different theories:
- because there is pain and suffering and people/their families wanted them to get better.
- The ‘framing’ theory: ‘hysteria’ is a framing disease that provides an outlet for pain, suffering, trauma, or violence (today there are different illnesses that do the same thing).
- ‘Symptom selection’: symptoms that are embraced depending on cultural factors. What symptoms are available at the time for expression of distress? A legitimate outlet to express mental distress that is bound by time, place and culture.
What is ‘secondary gain’?
‘Secondary gain’ is a theory that people play the symptoms of illness to be rewarded, a popular theory for a long time. Anything to do with trauma has been looked at with suspicion.
E.g.:
- Shell shock: ticket home from war.
- Hysteria: no responsibilities.
But, what is the ‘reward’?
What does the ‘secondary gain’ theory really indicate?
The suspicion that doctors have had about certain illnesses.
What makes a mental disorder, like Hysteria, proliferate, become more common?
The attitudes and reactions of patients, their symptom selection. Recognition by physicians, and friends and family.
What are the symptoms of ‘hysteria’?
Starts with ‘catalepsy’: fainting, trance states, rigidity of limbs, unresponsive.
Then we have ‘hysterical fits’: fits, convulsive attacks, screaming, extreme bodily movements.
They were, overtime, replaced by ‘hysterical paralysis’: paralysis, blindness, deafness, inability to speak (mutism).
What is the course of the ‘hysteria’ disease?
- starts with: loss of appetite, weight loss, pains, headaches, stomach aches, wasting away.
- then, a traumatic event or shock, sets of a hysterical attack.
- symptoms appear: catalepsy.
- sometimes followed by convulsions.
- later, paralysis.
What explanations were introduced to explain ‘hysteria’?
Charcot came up with different explanations for men and women.
Men: traumatic shock (e.g., railway accidents).
Women: it is in the female nature.
What was the percentage of men vs. women of Charcot’s patients with ‘hysteria’?
Men: 10%.
Women: 90%.
What was the general attitude of physicians toward hysteric patients?
Physicians generally didn’t like hysteric patients, because no matter what they did, the patients would just keep coming back.
What were some earlier treatments for hysteria?
- denial, scolding, punishment and threat.
- suggestion (a form of hypnosis).
- hydrotherapy (hot and cold baths, electrotherapy (small waves of electricity through the body - like for neurasthenia).
- surgery (amputate limbs that were paralysed.
- hypnosis (people like to please the hypnotist, sometimes memories are constructed under hypnosis).
Who was the first person to practice hypnosis and what did he call it?
An Austrian doctor called Franz Anton Mesmer, he called it ‘animal magnetism’. He believed there was a magnetic force between all human beings that could be channelled.
Who brought hypnosis back as a legitimate treatment after it was discredited?
Mesmer’s practice of hypnosis was discredited, and Charcot brought it back as a legitimate treatment.
What was Charcot’s typical pose for hypnosis/treatment of hysteria?
He would put his hand under his jacket (similar to a pose that Napoleon did).
What was Salpetriere Hospital?
A big hospital in paris, where Charcot worked. He separated out the patients with clear neurological problems (damage to the brain), from people with no neurological damage but similar symptoms.
