The Mystery of Hysteria and the Crossroads of Power: Commentary on Paper by Sam Gerson

Abstract

“Hysteria and Humiliation,” it is argued, performs a small miracle, weaving inner and outer perspectives on a seemingly mysterious condition into a clinically useful formulation. Its bold new thinking is shown to clear up many conceptual problems about the state of mind and sufferings that a diagnosis of “hysteria” usually designates. This paper, it is suggested, also puts paid to the classical denigration of women implicit in the very category of hysteria itself, thus advancing the psychoanalysis of power.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Avgi Saketopoulou, Psy.D., for useful critiques of this discussion.

Notes

¹I am aware of emphasizing women's experience of hysterical symptoms, even though they manifest in men too. That hysteria has classically predominated in, and is associated with, femininity does not mean Gerson's understandings do not apply to men as well, even if, as he points out, the masculine version may take the form of violence.