What is hysteria?

What Does hysteria Mean

Hysteria is a term with origins in the French hystérie , although its more distant antecedents take us to the Greek language. Hysteria is defined as a disease nervous and chronic which is more common in women than in men and is characterized by a wide variety of functional symptoms. Nowadays, however, medicine does not usually use this term.

Hysteria is a psychological disorder framed within the neuroses and somatization disorders . This means that the hysterical patient exhibits physical and psychological symptoms without organic origin and developed many times for unconscious reasons. Hypochondria, somatization, dissociative amnesia, and depersonalization are often associated with hysterical disorders.

Among the many symptoms that people with hysteria include: pain thoracic abdominal, back, head, joints; amnesia; diarrhea; swallowing problems; dizziness; loss of sexual desire; vision disturbances; difficulty breathing; muscular weakness; nausea and vomiting. It is worth mentioning that the ailments of hysteria usually extend over several years and interfere in all aspects of life, such as interpersonal relationships and work.
Other characteristics of hysteria are that it usually appears before reaching the age of 30 and that it occurs especially in people who suffer from chronic pain and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). To identify the causes, both physical and psychological examinations are usually performed.
For a long time and until the end of the 19th century , hysteria was associated with a supposed feminine malaise linked to sexuality . Doctors treated apparently sick women with clitoral massages or indicating the use of dildos since they attributed the evil to what the Greeks called a burning uterus .
These practices are no longer part of medicine and hysterical symptoms are considered to appear in both women and men. Today hysteria is usually understood as a temporary state of nervous excitement that is produced by an abnormal or extraordinary situation. For example: "The arrival of the Mexican singer unleashed the hysteria of his followers" , "I don't like the hysteria that arises around the actors . "
In popular language, the word hysteria usually takes on one of two possible meanings: a state of mind characterized by alteration , which can be temporary or common in a given person; a deceptive and manipulative attitude. The first of these meanings, for its part, can have a positive or negative connotation, depending on the case; For example, accusing a person of being hysterical and telling them that their way of being is difficult to bear is the opposite of talking about screaming hysteria at good news.

Hysteria can also be associated with a temporary state of nerves in the face of a stressful and difficult situation to go through, such as facing a phobia; For example, if a person who suffers from vertigo is forced to walk over a very high bridge or near a ledge, they can live a real nightmare and go through a hysterical attack , understood as an alteration to the point of not being able to regain calm for several minutes.
On the other hand, there is hysteria as an attitude typical of those who seek to confuse and manipulate their environment. People who act this way often create false expectations of those around them, then disappoint them and cause them pain. In each case, the reasons that drive an individual to psychologically harm someone who has not attacked him in an apparent way respond to different experiences that probably marked him in his first years of life.