Hysteria as an Illness - Coursework Example

Thesis ment: Hysteria is an illness which existed for years and has been proven to be caused by repressed emotions and childhood thoughts which stayed in the unconscious level of the mind. Hysteria is somewhat similar to psychosomatic illness. A person suffering from a mild or minor form of hysteria may cry or laugh without observable reason. In more serious cases of hysteria, the patient may be suffering a severe physical disorder although his symptoms tend to be inconsistent and variable. Hysteria is also defined as a complex neurosis which takes a number of forms. In general, the disorder is characterized by emotional instability, repression, dissociation and instability. Hysteria probably caused by unconscious attempts to escape from unreasonable conflict situations to compensate for hereditary inability to develop normal personality integration or to adjust to partial repression of real or fancied sexual shock or trauma. The hysterical person claims one or more of many difficulties or disorders. These include: complete or partial inability to hear or see, prolonged periods of forgetting (amnesia), inability to sleep or sleep walking (somnambulism), loss of speech (aphoria), trances, muscular habits (spasms tics or tremors) and apparent epileptic seizures (idiopathic epilepsy), conversion hysteria in which metal conflicts re converted into physical symptoms such as paralysis, blindness and anesthesia, the fugus or flight, in which an individual becomes amnesic for personal past and multiple personality, in which individual's personality splits into two or more distinct personalities with dissociation of consciousness. Amnesia is a condition where the person cannot recall certain past experiences of his life. In functional amnesia, there is no brain damage as is found in some other forms. The forgotten material remains inaccessible to the person, but can be restored after treatment. Because the person cannot cope with this threatening material, there is repression so that it can be eliminated from the consciousness. Fugus states are characterized by a general amnesia for the person's entire past, including who he is and where he lived. This is associated with a flight (fugue) where the person wanders away from home and then days, weeks, and sometimes years later, finds himself in a strange place, not knowing how he got there, and not remembering about the period of fugue. In some cases, a person has lived away from his original home for ten or more years, starting a new occupation, building a family, only to "reawaken" later, missing his place of origin. In somnambulism, certain thoughts become so strong during sleep as to determine the person's behavior. The person rises and carries out some act. Like multiple personalities, there is some dissociation of some sub-system within the personality which is expressed during sleep and for which nothing is remembered during the waking state. Multiple personalities are rare. It is as if several parts of personality have not been successfully integrated so they become separated or dissociated from each other and the person frequently shifts from one to the other. There appear to be several complete systems of personality with each system having distinct emotional and thought processes, different from each other. When one personality is free and impulsive, another is inhibited and responsible. In conversion reaction, the person suffers from physical symptoms with o organic basis. It could be in the form of anesthesia (loss of sensitivity of some body part) where the person does not feel any pain or sensation in that part of the body. Diagnostic criteria for conversion disorder as defined in the DSM-IV are as follows: One or more symptoms or deficits are present that affect voluntary motor or sensory function that suggest a neurologic or other general medical condition. Psychologic factors are judged to be associated with the symptom or deficit because conflicts or other stressors precede the initiation or exacerbation of the symptom or deficit. The symptom or deficit is not intentionally produced or feigned (as in factitious disorder or malingering). The symptom or deficit, after appropriate investigation, cannot be explained fully by a general medical condition, the direct effects of a substance, or as a culturally sanctioned behavior or experience. The symptom or deficit causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning or warrants medical evaluation. The symptom or deficit is not limited to pain or sexual dysfunction, does not occur exclusively during the course of somatization disorder, and is not better accounted for by another mental disorder. Other examples are: hysterical blindness, deafness, convulsions or inability to talk or swallow. Though the person is unable to see, hear or feel there is no structural (organic) basis of disturbance. Commonly, the symptom takes a form inconsistent with the actual physical patterning of the nervous system. Cohen, Hilgard and Wendt (1933) found experimental proof that such disorders had psychological basis rather than neurological ones. In the classic glove anesthesia, the entire hand up to the wrist loses sensitivity as though covered by a glove. The person feels nothing when struck with a pin or touched by an examiner. Sometimes, it may appear for time or it may change or occur in another part of the body. Psychoanalytic theory represents a set of elaborate assumptions about human behavior tht are quite complex and, due to their abstractness, often difficult to comprehend. Moreover, the theory has evolved throughout this century. Various therapists have expanded on the original theory, and it has been influenced by different cultural beliefs. Indeed, Freud expanded and changed his own ideas through his lifetime. In order to familiarize with psychoanalytic theory, it is best to know the Freudian concepts, including structures of the mind, ego defense mechanisms, levels of consciouness and psychosexual developmental stages. Neurologists first discovered these symptoms because the symptoms suggested neurological disturbances. The early Greeks linked these conditions to sexual difficulties. "Anxiety hysteria" is now called anxiety. Anxiety means worrying about the future, and becoming tense or stressed as a result. There are many treatments for anxiety including medications and therapy. "Dissociative hysteria" is now called dissociative identity disorder. This is also known as multiple personality disorder. People with this disorder have more than one identity existing in their body. Treatment for this rare disorder is long-term therapy that often includes hypnosis. "Mass hysteria" or "epidemic hysteria" were terms used when large groups of people showed the same emotional symptoms or became extremely excited at the same time. These epidemics may have been due at times to actual physical problems. "Minor hysteria" was a term used to describe people who had minor pains, nervousness, and excitement. Some people diagnosed with this probably had one of the anxiety disorders. Others may have had mild forms of bipolar disorder. This is a disorder where people are sometimes very depressed and sometimes their moods become too high. Other people may have had actual physical complaints that could not be diagnosed with the technology of the times. "Major hysteria" and "hysteroepilepsy" are old terms for pseudoseizures. These are seizures that are not caused by physical problems. Instead, they are related to psychological problems. When people express emotional pain through physical symptoms it is called a conversion disorder. People with this problem may have blindness, seizures, or an inability to move an arm or a leg. However, when medical tests are done, there is no medical basis for the problem. Conversion disorders are now easier to diagnose with new medical techniques. They are treated with psychotherapy, and behavior modification. "Conversion hysteria" is the former name for conversion disorder. Many years ago, "hysteria" was a diagnosis made when no one really knew what was wrong. Now there are better tests for diagnosis and better treatments available. Freud's Theory of the Unconscious Freud, in his work with deeply disturbed patients, discovered that these men and women suffered many physical and mental symptoms without knowing the basic reason for their difficulties. They often reported that they were not experiencing any emotional disturbances except as their physical or mental reactions were causing them worry. Through the technique of psychoanalysis, Freud uncovered repressed memories of earlier emotional experiences that were the unconscious bases of existing neurotic state. The psychoanalytic school of psychology founded by Austrian physician, Sigmund Freud, was based on his theory of unconscious motivation and its effects on human behavior. His theory was that much of behavior is governed by hidden motives and unconscious desires. Sigmund was a Viennese who had made pioneering encounters with mental patients in France. He led another theoretical system in the psychological field. According to Freud, "in neurotic behavior, we re faced with human action guided principally by powerful unconscious motives whose roots can be traced to the neurotic conflicts in inarticulate infancy." Many human desires are directed and complicated by unconscious motives which they are not directly aware of because they lie in the substrata of our consciousness but which are nevertheless powerful drives that may dominate our lives. These desires are unacceptable wishes of childhood, principally libidinal repressed in our subconscious because they are socially unacceptable. These repressed desires press to find expression in dreams, slips of speech and in unconscious mannerisms. Through the method of free association, a method of psychoanalysis wherein the disturbed subject may find catharsis (a cleansing out thru verbal expression) these libidinal wishes can be ferreted out from one's subconscious. Freud's position on childhood sexuality was the principal reason for the rejection of this theory by the medical and psychological professions- principally by Carl Jung. Psychoanalysis, however, served to open fields of exploration in the goal-seeking activity of motivation and the concept of repression which served to camouflage many of our infantile fears and notions. In his efforts to cure persons suffering from mental disorders such as hysteria, he discovered that many problems of adults could be traced to childhood experiences which had been repressed. Freud made considerable impact on psychology. Even today, many clinical psychologists who now constitute a major force in the psychological profession are influenced by his theories and by the "talking out" method he used which lay the foundation for psychotherapy. Freud believed that hysteria originates in an unresolved oedipal complex and the energy of the repressed sexual impulse was converted to a physical symptom. The symptom reflected the nature of the sexual conflict. One type of this reaction is called La Belle Indifference (beautiful indifference) where the patient apparently presents no overt anxiety over his stress and that he is simply suffering from some symptom that he wants cured. The symptoms give him sympathy and escape from the unpleasant situation. According to psychodynamic theory, conversion symptoms develop to defend against unacceptable impulses. Some write of primary gain, that is to say purpose of keeping an internal conflict or need from being realized. A fairly transparent example would be leg paralysis after an equestrian competitor is thrown from his or her horse. The symptom has a symbolic value that is a representation and partial solution of a deep-seated psychological conflict: to avoid running away like a coward, and yet to avoid being thrown again. According to learning theory, conversion disorder symptoms are a learned maladaptive response to stress. Patients achieve secondary gain by avoiding activities that are particularly offensive to them, thereby gaining support from family and friends, which otherwise may not be offered. The Yellow Wallpaper is an autobiographical tale of clinical depression and the struggle for selfhood, written by an early feminist. The story is told by means of a journal which the narrator secretly keeps against the orders of her physician-husband, who believes this intellectual effort is contributing to his wife-patient's nervous condition. The narrator, a new mother, has been brought to a country house for a "rest-cure" by her husband; he selects for her the room with the yellow wallpaper, the (former) nursery, where the "windows are barred for little children" and the bed has been nailed to the floor. REFERENCES: American Psychiatric Association.Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revisions.Washington DC: APA;2000. Ford CV, Folks DG.Conversion disorders: an overview.Psychosomatics.May1985;26(5):371-4, 380-3. Gilman , Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. New York: The Feminist Press, 1973. Gilman, Sandra, et al. Hysteria Beyond Freud. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993. Mace CJ.Hysterical conversion. I: A history.Br J Psychiatry.Sep1992;161:369-77. Veith, Ilza. Hysteria: The History of a Disease. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1965. Read More