ABSTRACT

Hysteria and hysterics have occupied physicians, philosophers, playwrights, and poets since antiquity. In psychoanalysis of the Lacanian orientation, hysteria and hysterics continue to be the appropriate terms for well-established concepts that operate as clear reference-points in clinical practice. Psychosomatic phenomena should be distinguished from the symptoms of conversion hysteria "proper". The case of little Hans Sachs, which has been so instructive as the inaugural case of psychoanalysis with children, inspired Sigmund Freud to propose a new clinical nosological category within the structure of hysteria: anxiety hysteria. The clinical and metapsychological picture described by Sachs is particularly apt to represent the subjective positions of many patients arriving at the doors these days, for whom an initial diagnosis of anxiety hysteria or perversion seems unclear. Hysterics, too, contribute to the culture in better ways than the stereotypical figure of the histrionic and forever whining creature.