Hysteria: symptoms in women, men and children. Causes and treatment of hysteria

What is hysteria: a disease or is it still a norm? This psychological disorder is more typical for women, but it also appears in men. What symptomatology and what treatment is possible in case of hysteria? The presented article will answer a number of questions concerning this phenomenon.

The phenomenon of hysteria gained its fame from the ancient times of Dr. Hippocrates. Under him understood a whole group of neuroses, which related to diseases of the uterus (hysteron). An intensive study of this mental disorder began in the late 19th century. Its name is hysteria. Symptoms in women have become a primary material for scientists.

Scientific research

The study of this disease began to deal with P. Jean and J. M. Sharko. Under the influence of the latter, Z. Freud and J. Breyer dealt with the psychic mechanisms of hysteria . Z. Freud made a great contribution to the development of such a phenomenon as hysteria. He saw the treatment in a new method he invented - psychoanalysis. Also, the psychologist defined the psychological mechanisms of protection that we need in the event of an internal conflict that has arisen. It is repression, identification, transfer, denial. Z. Freud said that if the mechanisms can not eliminate the conflict, hysteria is coming. The reasons also he saw in repressed ideas and memories, which have an erotic character and are expressed in bodily symptoms.

In general, Freud had his own developed classification of psychoneurosis. He distinguished hysterical neuroses and obsessional neuroses. They differ from the neurosis of fear, because the latter occurs after unsuccessful erotic experience, but psychoneurosis is provoked by conflicts of early childhood.

Two kinds 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 occurs as a result of the action of such a protective mechanism as the displacement of the unfolding internal conflict.

Conversion hysteria provides that the patient will try to cope with internal conflict by turning it into bodily expressions or dissociation. Hysteria of fear does not allow the human I overcome fear due to the presence of obsessional and phobic mechanisms. Phobic neurosis is another name for this kind of phenomenon of "hysteria." Reasons for renaming are quite understandable.

Characteristics of conversion hysteria

Has a variety of conversion hysteria symptoms. Her treatment takes place in the office of the psychoanalyst, who first of all reveals the degree of manifestation of manifestations.

First, these are bodily symptoms. They are very volatile in nature and in this case have a connection not with violations of anatomical or physiological nature, but with psychic phenomena.

Secondly, external emotional indifference. Is a very serious symptom.

Thirdly, episodic mental states are hysterical fits. They can be both an independent expression, and be combined with the above symptoms. Seizures involve the bifurcation of certain functions of the psyche.

Often such attacks are accompanied by female hysteria. Symptoms in women also include complex fantastic stories and dreams that can be analyzed. They are the result of distortions that arise due to the effects of protective mechanisms.

A number of bright bodily symptoms represent conversion hysteria. In women, there are motor, visceral or sensory disorders: pain, deafness, tremor, blindness, paralysis, vomiting. But these symptoms are false. They are not a confirmation of anatomophysiological disorders. But hysterics have a complete conviction that their symptom is serious and quite real.

Hysterical symptoms arise when conflicts arise, which took place even during the period of psychosexual development of a person. Dangerous is the desire of the mother or father (depending on the sex of the child), which is imposed incest prohibition. According to Z. Freud, some types of hysteria depend also on pre-genital conflicts, namely, oral.

Psychological protection

The main types of protective psychological mechanisms include identification, regression and repression. With their help the psyche tries to cope with children's conflicts and suppresses unconscious fantasies, lowering them below the level of consciousness. Thus, the person retains its integrity.

Syndromes differ in individual features of such a disease as hysteria. Treatment consists in the fact that with the help of psychotherapy the doctor reveals a pathogenic pattern. Internal conflicts affect the formation of the individual. If the disease does not manifest itself, then it may simply be a hysterical character. Theatrical demonstrativeness, coquetry, a labile mood, a tendency to react to unconscious fantasy - that's hysteria. Women also express a fear of sexual intercourse in brightly evoking behavior.

Types of hysteria

The present disorder has its own characteristics, depending on gender. The first type is hysteria in children. Symptoms appear in the form of an acute reaction to fright, which has no basis. It also happens that hysterical fits are due to parental punishment. When parents realize their own mistakes, change the form of punishment, then hysterical fits go away.

In adolescence, hysteria is observed among weak-willed girls and boys who do not want to hear about the refusal to fulfill their desires, unskilled to work. Such adolescents manipulate adults with the help of their illness.

Men's hysteria

Dr. J. Charcot, in addition to studying women's ailments, observed cases of such a disease as hysteria in men. Symptoms of this disorder were previously considered purely feminine.

The scientist J. Charcot significantly influenced Z. Freud by demonstrations of male hysteria. He showed that using hypnosis can provoke hysterical paralysis and eliminate hysterical symptoms.

Returning from Paris, enthusiastic Z. Freud presented a speech "On the hysteria in men", in which he told about the results of the research of J. Charcot. But the Viennese doctors were rather reserved in their judgments and suggested that Freud himself study and demonstrate such a case. The clinical observation of the psychiatrist did not lead to anything, since the scientific community of Vienna remained uninterested in male hysteria.

Women's hysteria

The third type of this disorder is female hysteria. Symptoms in women take their origins in hormonal metabolic processes. In this regard, the disease is associated with the activity of the sex glands, which produce steroids. These substances affect the mood of a woman during the menstrual period. Bursts of hormones in the puberty and postpartum periods cause such frustration as hysteria. Symptoms in women are characterized not only by the physiological side, but also by behavioral ones. Women seek to win everyone's attention, admiration, envy and surprise. They invent different stories and stories, defiantly dress. Their mood changes rapidly. If the case is more severe, paralysis or paresis may occur, and then the women need help in the movement.

The patient can twitch her head without any reason. Often speech is broken, stammering, dumbness, spasms of the esophagus, hiccough. From the side it seems that the patients behave absurdly.

Female hysterical attacks are characterized by sharp movements, screaming, yelling. The patient pulls out her hair and cries. Stop such an attack can be a sharp sound, cotton, severe pain and cold water. The hysteria darkens the mind a little, but the patient remembers all events.

Hysterical neurosis: treatment

All the treatment of hysteria comes down to eliminating the source of internal conflict. Psychotherapy is a method that can not be dispensed with. The main techniques used in the treatment are hypnosis, training, suggestion.

In the process of hypnosis, the doctor can apply the method of free association, through which it is possible to single out a chain of associations that connect the primary pathogenic pattern with the symptom. This procedure can take a long time, as unraveling the associative chains is not an easy task. The doctor finds out the properties of the patient's character, the importance of certain motives. Also, the psychoanalyst overcomes the resistance of the patient who does not want to reproduce the traumatic events at all.

It is worth noting that such a direction as psychoanalysis does not provide for a mechanical play in the role. A person must remove all masks and appear as he is. Such sincerity concerns not only the patient, but also the doctor. The psychoanalyst has access to the formation of personality, and very much in the life of the patient will depend on the doctor. Maximum dedication can provoke a nervous breakdown and a doctor, so every psychologist has his own psychologist.

The presented method of free associations became an in-depth continuation and development of the Breyer's cathartic method. There was a substitution of hypnosis with communication, saturated with emotions, and the moral influence of the doctor on the patient. The impulses 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.

Medical treatment is also used. Patients are attributed psychotropic ("Aminalon", "Nootropil" drugs), "Rudothel" medication, darsonvalization of legs and restorative medications that support health and mental state. The intake of vitamins, massage sessions positively affect the entire body.

Hysterical attacks in children are treated with simpler methods. The most effective techniques are suggestion and false treatment. Having found out the reason, parents will help to cure children's hysteria.

They also use folk remedies to eliminate hysterical neurosis. There are different herbs that soothe the nervous system (mint, valerian, motherwort).

Prevention of hysterical seizures

Strangely enough, but for the prevention of this disorder excessive care and care is not needed at all, because hysterics, catching this, can begin to feign the disease and benefit from its condition. Close one should accept a state of adequate perception with slight disregard. In this case, either hysterical seizures will disappear altogether, or their level of demonstrativeness will decrease.

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.