ABSTRACT
“An hysteric,” it has been said, “is someone who goes through life pretending to be who he really is.” 2 I’ve never heard a diagnostic description of hysteria I liked better, except perhaps, “an hysteric is like a glass of water without the glass.” Each of these aphorisms, in its own imagery, points a finger directly at the hysteric’s most pronounced interpersonal handicaps: his readiness to dramatize his feelings lest they not be taken as “real” by others and his burden of chronic anxiety engendered by the mistrust that is indeed felt by others as to where they stand with him at any given moment. Whether male or female, the hysteric, in other words, suffers not only from reminiscences (Breuer and Freud, 1893–1895, p. 7), but from a tragic inability to convince others of the authenticity of his or her own subjective experience. Comparing this to what Sullivan (1953) labeled “security operations,” Laing (1962b) suggested that “the hysteric is engaged in sincerity operations.” He noted, however, that
it is usually others who complain of the hysteric’s lack of genuineness or sincerity. In fact, it is regarded as pathognomonic of the hysteric that his or her actions should be false, that they should be histrionic, dramatized, etc. The hysteric, on the other hand, often insists that his feelings are real and genuine. It is we who feel that they are unreal [p. 36].
