ABSTRACT
"Hysteria today" becomes an oxymoron, as the diagnostic category already contains within it a temporal parameter: the symptoms that are historically specific to a given culture at a given time. Many psychotic subjects use the desire of the Other to stabilise, using the hysterical "derobade" to maintain a tolerable position. Sometimes, complaints about the suffering body may invite the idea of hysteria, but it is always prudent to ask whether the apparent conversion hides a hypochondria or a porosity of bodily boundaries. The claim that hysteria ceased to exist can hardly be taken seriously for a simple reason. For both Jean-Martin Charcot and Sigmund Freud, the symptoms of hysteria were fabulously changeable. Presenting symptoms will change with culture, but the relation to the symptom will remain invariable, or rather, as invariable as the different categories of hysteria will allow.
