Hysteria is an outdated term referring to extreme fear and irrational behavior, originally used to describe women with alleged uterine disorders. Modern psychological thought recognizes two types: somatoform and dissociative, with symptoms having a psychological rather than biological cause. Current theory suggests it is the body’s response to psychological distress.
Hysteria is an outdated medical term that is still used colloquially to refer to a state of extreme fear or emotion and the irrational behavior that results. The term was originally employed to describe women who have acted irrationally due to an alleged disorder of the uterus. In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) replaced the diagnosis “hysterical neurosis, conversion type” with “conversion disorder.”
The word comes from the Greek for “uterus.” According to ancient medical thought, women who abstained from sexual intercourse for an extended period suffered from mental disorders due to the withdrawal of the uterus into the body and the compression of the other organs. This theory was revived in 19th century medicine and again in the 1920s through the influence of Freud’s psychological theories. Induced orgasm has been used as a treatment for allegedly hysterical women. The notion of so-called female hysteria has since been discredited.
In modern psychological thought, there are two types of hysteria: somatoform and dissociative. Somatoform hysteria is characterized by physical or psychosomatic symptoms. One example is conversion disorder, in which neurological symptoms such as paralysis, pain, and seizures with no neurological cause are present. Other examples include body dysmorphic disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, and hypochondriasis. Patients with this form do not feign their illnesses; rather, the symptoms have a psychological, or inorganic, rather than a biological cause.
Dissociative hysteria is characterized by a fugue state, otherwise known as amnesia, in which the patient experiences a loss of identity to some extent. Memory loss and personality changes are common symptoms. Like the other type, a fugue state is not an intentional avoidance, but rather an actual loss of memory due to psychological distress or trauma.
Current psychiatric theory holds that this condition is the body’s attempt to deal with psychological distress. There may be a benefit to the patient, such as avoiding whatever is causing the discomfort; someone might get too ill to continue working a stressful job or live alone, for example. Sometimes, however, there’s no apparent benefit; for example, a person might experience symptoms of poisoning due to a mistaken belief that they have been poisoned.
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