HISTERIC NEUROSIS: what it is, symptoms, characteristics and treatment

For many years there have been innumerable clinical cases, with obvious physical symptoms such as paralysis, pain, allergies and even loss of voice, which have never been found to have a probable cause physiological. These pathologies have long been treated as symptoms with a psychological etiology, that is, psychic conflicts that affect the body diagnosed as hysteria. In Psychology-Online we explain what is hysterical neurosis, what are possible symptoms and their treatment.

Index

1. What is hysterical neurosis
2. Symptoms of hysterical neurosis
3. Characteristics of hysterical neurosis
4. Treatment of hysterical neurosis

In order to explain what the hysterical neurosis, I consider that in the first place it is necessary to understand what a symptom is. In general terms, we could say that from Freud's theory, the symptom is a harmful or useless act for life. People with these symptoms clearly state that they are feeling them against their will and that it obviously causes them a great deal of suffering.

In hysterical neurosis there are no standardized tests for its diagnosis. The diagnosis of hysterical neurosis generally involves evaluating existing symptoms and thus rule out any neurological disease or any other medical condition that may be provoking them.

We understand then that hysterical neurosis is a clear physical alteration but with unknown cause, in clinical terms, idiopathic. With this we can understand that the symptoms clearly exist, and are not invented by the patient as they are in factitious disorder.

Another type of neurosis is obsessive neurosis. In obsessive neurosis, the diagnosis based on positive symptoms and signs (distressing somatic symptoms and abnormal thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in response to these symptoms), rather than in the absence of a medical explanation for the symptoms somatic.

Hysterical neurosis can generate different types of symptoms and these cause significant deterioration. Between the most frequent symptoms the following may be mentioned:

• Tremors
• Weakness or paralysis
• Dificulty to walk.
• Loss of phonological function.
• Sensation of having a lump in the throat.
• Paresthesia.
• Seizures
• Hearing impairment (hearing loss).
• The symptoms become central axes in the life of the patient.
• Symptoms related to swallowing.

More than two symptoms can appear at the same time. Variations in the presentation of symptoms are possibly the result of the interaction of multiple factors within cultural contexts, which they affect the way individuals identify and classify bodily sensations, perceive illness, and seek medical attention for them. Therefore, somatic presentations can be considered as expressions of personal suffering within a certain cultural and social context.

According to Sigmund Freud (1923) we understand that neurosis is the result of a conflict between the ego and its id, in so much so that psychosis is the analogous outcome of a similar disturbance in the links between the self and the world Exterior. For Freud, then, what characterizes a neurosis is precisely a intrapsychic conflict "between the id and the self"Instead, what characterizes the genesis of a psychosis is a conflict between the self and external reality.

The repression

In other words, the ego does not want to accept or process an instinctual emotion that pushes from the id. What happens is that the ego defends itself through the mechanism of repression - the funny thing is that afterwards all that repressed content is returns against that repressive sense and manages in one way or another to escape repression through a substitute commitment: the symptom -. In the following article you can see more information about what are defense mechanisms and types with examples.

The replacement

As we analyzed in previous paragraphs, the symptom, which is a commitment formation that in some disguised and substitute way, allows the return of the repressed, Thus the ego, instead of fighting against that content that came from the id, continues its fight but now against the symptom, what is then conformed is a picture of neurosis.

We understand then through the analysis of Freud's theory, that the ego enters into conflict with the id and gives priority to its other two vassals: the superego and reality. When the ego operates for the benefit of reality and the superego and to the detriment of the id, is a neurosis.

The difference with somatizations

A distinctive feature of hysterical neurosis is that it is not the somatic (physical) symptoms themselves, but the way they are presented and interpreted. The integration of behavioral, affective and cognitive components will provide a more comprehensive and accurate exploration of the true clinical picture.

Discomfort

People with hysterical neurosis are characterized by the way they express and perceive their physical symptoms (for example, expressing a lot of anguish and anxiety the somatic symptom and also manifest catastrophic thoughts of the same "attribute as a cause to his condition some terminal illness" and thus lead to behaviors of constant exploration of his symptom).

Keep in mind that it is not appropriate to diagnose a person with hysterical neurosis just because a medical cause cannot be proven. Furthermore, the presence of a medical diagnosis does not exclude the possibility of a concomitant hysterical neurosis.

Hysterical neurosis can be treated from different perspectives:

Psychoanalysis

In the preface to his translation of Charcot's Polyclinical Lessons, Freud summarizes the French working style:

I have emphasized the concepts of entité morbid, serial, de type, and de formes frustées, because their application expresses a central character of the French way of working clinically. Such an appreciation of seeing things is foreign to the German way; here the symptomatology or type does not play a main role, but a feature that is explained from the history of the development of German clinicians, namely the inclination towards the physiological interpretation of the disease state and the links between the symptoms (1892).^[1]

This "German way", which reinforces the interpretation of pathological states, which will later predominate in the way in which Sigmund Freud would approach the study of hysterical phenomena.

This type of intervention was achieved through collaboration with Breuer. In 1882 Freud became acquainted with a specific variant of the hypnotic method. While Charcot used hypnosis to make conscious psychic contents hitherto inaccessible, Breuer and Freud used it to interrogate the sick about the history of the emergence of his symptom, which the individual could not fully communicate, but incompletely in a state of vigil.

We observe the treatment proposed in psychoanalysis for hysterical neurosis in this quote, where it is seen clearly the way in which from the early phases of Freudian thought, interest began to be directed towards what would constitute the central theme of his therapeutic interventions: "the elaboration of the life history of the subject." Thus the hysterical patient begins the vital historical elaboration and the process of understanding his suffering.

Other psychotherapies

There are also other effective ways to treat hysterical neurosis and it is through various psychotherapies, below we share some of them:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy.
• TREC (Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy).
• Logotherapy (Technique of reflection and paradoxical intention).

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Hysterical neurosis: what it is, symptoms, characteristics and treatment, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

1. Sigmund Freud. (1923). Complete works Sigmund Freud Volume XIX, The I and the It and other works. Amorrortu editors.