The history of pain and hysteria

Issue title: Hysteria in Rehabilitation

Guest editors: Robert TeasellGuest Editor

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Merskey, Harold

Affiliations: University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

Abstract: Although hysteria is connected with the idea of the womb causing illness, including headache, pain was only one of many symptoms which have been classed under the term hysteria. Patterns of anxiety with bodily symptoms and depression contributed to ancient and early modern concepts of the diagnosis. Pain became moderately prominent as a hysterical symptom from about the 18th century onwards. Only in the 19th century, with advances in anatomy, physiology and clinical medicine did it become possible to prove that there was a limited group of symptoms which resulted from the patient's idea of illness. The explanation of hysterical symptoms has depended substantially upon Freudian theory which is now undergoing a serious challenge. Hysterical pains can only be diagnosed rarely, if at all, and different efforts to describe hysteria in patients with pain have only been partially successful. Attempts to classify pain as a behavioral disorder have also been substantially unsuccessful. This may be because the psychological causes of pain are not so common as previously thought. There is also increasing reason to believe that unexplained pains have a physiological basis.

Keywords: Pain, Hysteria, Psychological, Pathophysiological, Repression, Post-traumatic illness

DOI: 10.3233/NRE-1997-8302

Journal: NeuroRehabilitation, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 157-162, 1997