Hysteria refers to a host of disorders, including depression.
Hysteria was once thought to be a woman's disease, a result of the uterus moving around in the body. Today, hysteria is understood as a neurological disorder under the aegis of dissociative and personality disorders that can accompany a host of other psychiatric conditions, including depression.
History
Hysteria was once a common diagnosis for women suffering from any emotional or psychiatric disturbance. Galen, a second-century physician, thought hysteria was a product of sexual deprivation and treatments often involved intimate massage, questionable by today's medical standards. According to "People and Discoveries" on PBS, hysteria found mass popularity during the Victorian era with Jean-Martin Charcot, a neurologist and mentor of Sigmund Freud. Charcot spent many years working with women suffering from hysteria at Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.
Causes
Depression with hysteria (or the range of dissociative and personality disorders that it describes) has the same risk factors as depression alone. According to WebMD, risk factors include abuse, conflict, death or loss, genetics, certain medications, such as those used to treat high blood pressure, major life events, serious illness and substance abuse.
Symptoms
Symptoms of depression with hysteria or hysterical neurosis are difficult to pinpoint, but according to the website Depression-guide.com, they include hysterical convulsions, sensory disturbances, hypoesthesis (partial loss of sensitivity), hyperesthesis (extreme loss of sensitivity), analgesia (loss of sensitivity to pain) and parasthenia (excessive sensation).
Psychosomatic Illness
According to a study in the journal "Psychosomatic Medicine," Hysteria, also called Briquet's syndrome, is a "polysymptomatic disorder that begins early in life, chiefly affects women, and is characterized by recurrent, multiple somatic complaints often described dramatically." The study found that sufferers experience psychological and emotional symptoms that are difficult or impossible to distinguish from other psychiatric disorders, like depression.
Research
The definition of hysteria has been broad, and this has made it difficult to identify and study the interaction between hysteria and depression, according to a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry. One study used the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression along with a newly devised measure for hysterical personality to examine the relationship between the two disorders in hospitalized women. They found a positive correlation. Further study is needed to understand the complex relationship between the two disorders.
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