Has Hysteria Vanished as a Medical Condition? Well, Kind Of

What is the condition we call hysteria and where did it go? How could hysteria have been a widespread medical condition 100 years ago then just disappear? Well, in a way it didn't.

Certain diseases and sicknesses come and go and we find this perfectly natural. The bubonic plague is a perfect example of a disease that emerged and ravaged a civilization and went away. The AIDS/HIV epidemic is similar, though this syndrome has not found a cure nor been eradicated, the apocalyptic proportions of the AIDS epidemic have been brought under control in many areas of the world through a practical understanding of how the disease spreads.

Once we figure out how a disease or sickness is transferred from person to person, it is only natural that we take steps to avoid spreading it further. It comes as no surprise then that some illnesses go away after a while.

This point does not hold equally for all disorders and conditions. Mental conditions and social disorders do not follow the same logic as physical, viral or bacterial illnesses.

When We Don't Know the Cause There Is No Cure

Disorders like schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and ADHD do not seem likely to go away any time soon. We don't know what causes these disorders and we do not have a full diagnostic understanding of them, so we can only treat the symptoms of the illness.

Though there are reasons to suspect that culture, language and a degree of labeling habits play a part in the continuing spread of autism and ADHD, we can assume nonetheless that these afflictions have existed long before terms "autism" and "ADHD" came into being. The illness is real, not fully understood, and therefore can be reasonably expected to persist.

Another affective, emotional disorder that would fit into this category is the condition formerly known as hysteria.

Hysteria

First diagnosed as a physical medical condition, hysteria has come to be defined as a mental and emotional disorder: nervous affection, occurring almost exclusively in women, in which the emotional and reflex excitability is exaggerated, and the will power correspondingly diminished, so that the patient loses control over the emotions, becomes the victim of imaginary sensations, and often falls into paroxysm or fits. (1)

This definition is current, yet it eludes to the historical nature of hysteria as a disorder.

At the end of the 19^th century, Sigmund Freud and others in the burgeoning field of psychology helped to correct popular ideas about this medical trend that had become widespread.

Hysteria was a medical fad, comparable perhaps to ADHD in the early 21^st century. Those of us familiar with literature and film from the turn of the century, Freud's heyday, will recognize the symptoms of hysteria, if not the causes.

" This business about hysteria stemmed from the idea that women were fragile, nervous wrecks who would freak out at every opportunity: The patient... becomes agitated; falls if before standing, throws her limbs about convulsively; twists the body into all kinds of violent contortions; beats her chest; and, though a delicate woman, evinces a muscular strength which often requires four or five persons to restrain her effectually." (2)

From accounts like these, hysteria appears to be a form of possession like speaking in tongues. For many of us today in fact, hysteria does seem like a phantom bit of popular hypochondria, a trance not unlike those of tribal cultures and religious groups which are understood to be a mode of self-hypnosis and not a medical condition.

Seen in this light it is not surprising that hysteria apparently faded away and was no longer diagnosed. As a disorder and an illness, it went away because it was bad science in the first place, merely a fanciful misperception of passing madness or perhaps a misdiagnosis of a more specific psychological disorder.

Freud was of the persuasion that hysteria was in itself a psychological medical disorder, but subsequent psychologists and psychiatrists have given the vaunted condition a make-over.

Conversion Disorder

A "new" psychiatric condition grew out of the ashes of hysteria. Conversion disorder is " a condition in which a person has blindness, paralysis, or other nervous system (neurologic) symptoms that cannot be explained by medical evaluation." (3)

In the first edition of the DSM (now known as DSM'"I) (American Psychiatric Association, 1952),conversion disorder appeared as '‹Å"conversion reaction' . In DSM'"II (1968), it was grouped with dissociation disorder under the new diagnostic category of 'hysterical neurosis',a title echoing the early concept of 'hysteria' resulting from uterine disorder in women. Subsequently, conversion disorder was conceptualized as a disorder of the brain associated with disordered emotions. (4)

Hysteria is gone and it's not. The condition has not gone the way of the plague and perhaps this is because hysteria is not a "thing" like the plague was, it is not, strictly speaking, biological. Hysteria is an idea and ideas have the power to hang around long after we kill all the infected rats and start washing our hands. Ideas scurry about in our minds until they lose power over our imaginations.

Disclaimer: The writer of this article is not a doctor and this article represents research and opinion not intended to be scientifically definitive in any way. The purpose of this article is to raise questions about the nature of our relationship to disease, disorder, and health.

More From This Contributor:

Culture in the Brain

Musuem of Psychiatry

Novels on Psychiatry

Sources:

1. Biology Online

2. History House

3.PubMedHealth

4. Conversion Disorder