ABSTRACT
We generally regard as health, a capacity to meet the realities of life (external and internal), and that this capacity is capable of growth. In illness, excessive defences are employed as a way of dealing with the vicissitudes of life, stunting development and increasing the fears of negotiating reality. In this paper, I explore a psychic organization which we tend to call hysteria. I hope to show how the ‘hysteric’ feels held together by his defences and faulty object relationships and simultaneously mutilates and is terrified of reality.
