What is hysteria: a disease or a norm? This psychological disorder is more common in women, but also in men. What symptoms and treatment is possible in case of hysteria? This article will answer a number of questions regarding this phenomenon.
The phenomenon of hysteria has gained its fame since the ancient times of Dr. Hippocrates. Under it was understood a whole group of neuroses that related to uterine diseases (hysteron). An intensive study of this mental disorder began in the late 19th century. Its name is hysteria. Symptoms in women have become the predominant material for scientists.
Scientific research
P. Janet and J. M. Charcot began to study this disease. Under the influence of the latter, Z. Freud and J. Breyer took up the study of the psychic mechanisms of hysteria . Z. Freud made a huge contribution to the development of such a phenomenon as hysteria. He saw the treatment in a new method he had invented - psychoanalysis. The psychologist also identified the psychological defense mechanisms that we need in the event of an internal conflict. This is repression, identification, transference, denial. Z. Freud said that if mechanisms cannot eliminate the conflict, hysteria sets in. He also saw the reasons in repressed representations and memories, which are erotic in nature and are expressed in bodily symptoms.
In general, Z. Freud had his own developed classification of psychoneuroses. He highlighted hysterical neurosis and obsession neurosis. They differ from the neurosis of fear, since the latter arises after an unsuccessful erotic experience, but psychoneuroses are provoked by conflicts of early childhood.
Two types of hysteria
Z. Freud in the phenomenon of hysteria also distinguished two types. Both cases have a common basic feature of the concept of "hysteria." The disease arises as a result of the action of such a protective mechanism as the crowding out of an ongoing internal conflict.
Conversion hysteria provides that the patient will try to cope with the internal conflict by turning it into bodily expressions or dissociation. The hysteria of fear does not allow the human self to overcome fear due to the presence of obsessive and phobic mechanisms. Phobic neurosis is another name for this type of hysteria phenomenon. The reasons for renaming are understandable.
Characteristics of Conversion Hysteria
Has various conversion hysteria symptoms. Her treatment takes place in the office of a psychoanalyst, which primarily reveals the severity of manifestations.
Firstly, these are bodily symptoms. They are very variable in nature and in this case have a connection not with violations of anatomical or physiological nature, but with mental phenomena.
Secondly, external emotional indifference. It is a very serious symptom.
Thirdly, episodic mental states are hysterical seizures. They can be either an independent expression or combined with the above symptoms. Seizures involve the bifurcation of certain functions of the psyche.
Often such seizures are accompanied by female hysteria. Symptoms in women also include complex fantasy stories and dreams that can be analyzed. They are the result of distortions that arise due to the impact of protective mechanisms.
A number of striking bodily symptoms are conversion hysteria. In women, motor, visceral, or sensory disturbances occur : pain, deafness, tremor, blindness, paralysis, and vomiting. But these symptoms are false. They are not confirmation of anatomophysiological disorders. But tantrums have the full conviction that their symptom is serious and very real.
Hysterical symptoms occur when conflicts awaken, which took place even during the period of human psychosexual development. Dangerous is the desire of the mother or father (depending on the gender of the child), on which an incestuous prohibition is imposed. According to Z. Freud, some types of hysteria also depend on pregenital conflicts, namely oral ones.
Psychological defense
The main types of protective psychological mechanisms include identification, regression and repression. With their help, the psyche tries to cope with childhood conflicts and suppresses unconscious fantasies, dropping them below the level of consciousness. In this way, a person maintains his integrity.
Syndromes differ in the individual characteristics of a disease such as hysteria. The treatment is that with the help of psychotherapy, the doctor identifies a pathogenic pattern. Internal conflicts also affect personality formation. If the disease has not manifested, then a hysterical formation may simply occur. Theatrical demonstration, coquetry, labile mood, a tendency to react unconscious fantasies - this is hysteria. Women also have a fear of sexual intercourse with brightly defiant behavior.
Varieties of hysteria
The presented disorder has its own characteristics depending on gender. The first variety is hysteria in children. Symptoms appear in the form of an acute reaction to a fright, which has no reason. It also happens that hysterical seizures arise due to parental punishment. When parents realize their own mistakes, change the form of punishment, then hysterical seizures pass.
In adolescence, hysteria is observed in weak-willed girls and guys who do not want to hear about the refusal to fulfill their desires, not accustomed to work. Such adolescents manipulate adults with their illness.
Male hysteria
Dr. J. Charcot, in addition to studying female ailments, observed cases of a disease such as hysteria in men. Symptoms of this disorder were previously considered purely female.
The scientist J. Sharko significantly influenced Z. Freud by demonstrations of male hysteria. He showed that using hypnosis can cause hysterical paralysis and eliminate hysterical symptoms.
Returning from Paris, enthusiastic Z. Freud presented a speech “On Hysteria in Men”, in which he spoke about the results of studies by J. Charcot. But the Viennese doctors were rather restrained in their opinions and suggested that Freud himself study and demonstrate a similar case. The clinical observation of the psychiatrist did not lead to anything, since the scientific community of Vienna remained uninterested in male hysteria.
Female hysteria
A third form of this disorder is female hysteria. Symptoms in women take their roots in hormonal metabolic processes. In this regard, the disease is associated with the activity of the sex glands that produce steroids. These substances affect the mood of a woman during the menstrual period. Bursts of hormones in the puberty and postpartum periods cause a disorder such as hysteria. Symptoms in a woman are characterized not only by the physiological side, but also by the behavioral one. Women strive to gain universal attention, admiration, envy and surprise. They make up different stories and stories, defiantly dress up. Their mood is changing rapidly. If the case is more severe, then paralysis or paresis may occur, and then women need help with mobility.
The patient may twitch his head without any reason. Often speech is disturbed, stuttering, dumbness, cramping of the esophagus, hiccups appear. From the outside it seems that patients behave ridiculously.
Female hysterical seizures are characterized by sudden movements, screams, screams. The patient pulls out her hair, cries. A harsh sound, cotton, severe pain and cold water can stop such an attack. Hysteria darkens consciousness a little, but the patient remembers all events.
Hysterical neurosis: treatment
All treatment for hysteria comes down to eliminating the source of internal conflict. Psychotherapy is a method that cannot be dispensed with. The main techniques used in the treatment are hypnosis, training, suggestion.
In the process of hypnosis, the doctor can use the free association method, with which you can select a chain of associations that connect the primary pathogenic pattern with the symptom. This procedure can take a lot of time, since unraveling associative chains is not an easy task. The doctor finds out the properties of the character of the patient, the importance of certain motives. Also, a psychoanalyst overcomes the resistance of a patient who does not want to reproduce traumatized events at all.
It is worth noting that such a direction as psychoanalysis does not provide for a mechanical game in the role. A person must take off all the masks and appear as he is. Such sincerity applies not only to the patient, but also to the doctor. The psychoanalyst has access to the formation of personality, and much in the life of the patient will depend on the doctor. Maximum dedication can also provoke a nervous breakdown at the doctor’s, so every psychologist has his own psychologist.
The presented method of free associations became an in-depth continuation and development of the cathartic Breyer method. Hypnosis was replaced by communication, saturated with emotions, and the moral influence of the doctor on the patient. The pulses that were released led to catharsis.
The above methods help the patient realize that he is running away from the disease, and thus healing begins.
Medication is also used. Patients are credited with psychotropic drugs (Aminalon, Nootropil), the Rudotel medication, darsonvalization of the legs, and general strengthening drugs that support the health and state of the psyche. The intake of vitamins, massage sessions positively affect the whole body.
Hysterical attacks in children are treated with simpler methods. The most effective techniques are suggestion and false treatment. Finding out the reason, parents will help cure children's hysteria.
Folk remedies are also used to eliminate hysterical neurosis. There are various herbs that calm the nervous system (mint, valerian, motherwort).
Prevention of hysterical seizures
Oddly enough, to prevent this disorder, excessive care and guardianship are not at all necessary, because a tantrum, having caught this, can begin to simulate the disease and benefit from its condition. Close ones need to accept a state of adequate perception with a slight disregard. In this case, either hysterical seizures disappear altogether, or their level of demonstrativeness decreases.
After a visit to a specialist, you should regularly take psychotropic drugs and drugs that calm the nervous system. You can drink tea and tinctures of different herbs.