by
Norman Costa
This article is, in part, a retelling of 'The Heroic Age of Hysteria,' a section from chapter 1, 'A Forgotten History,' in the 1997 book, “Trauma and Recovery: The aftermath of violence – from domestic abuse to political terror,” by Judith Herman, M.D. It was published by Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, New York. I highly recommend this book to all interested in the subject.
In part, this article relies on the work of Harold Bloom, principally, his 1998 book, “Shakespeare: The invention of the human,” and a few of his interviews related to Sigmund Freud. The book was published by Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., New York.
At the time Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) began his research into Hysteria, it was understood as a malady peculiar to women (according to 25 centuries of medical thinking) and accounted for any disease whose symptoms could not be found to have an organic cause. It was manifest in symptoms like partial paralysis, hallucinations, sensory losses, convulsions, and amnesias. Lumped into these symptoms was anything found (by men) to be mysterious or incomprehensible in women. The source of the problem, it was believed, resided in the uterus, and thus the medical term, Hysteria.