OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF HYSTERIA

¹ Dept. of Psychiatry and Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Mo.

This study, based upon a 6- to 8-year follow-up of 25 patients, who were diagnosed as suffering from hysteria originally, and again at follow-up, resulted in the following conclusions: 1. Hysteria, as here defined, is a distinct, recognizable syndrome which is very similar in its clinical features from patient to patient; 2. Hysteria is a chronic illness which lasts many years and which is nearly always free from significant remissions; 3. Hysteria is a multisymptomatic syndrome which can and should be distinguished from conversion reactions, which are individual symptoms found in many disorders in addition to hysteria.

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