The development of the hysterical personality

Abstract

We have surveyed a large sample of the literature in English and French from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries to examine the evolution of the idea of Hysterical Personality. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the predominant concept was one of depression, with violent and labile emotions and nervousness, accompanying physical complaints. Thereafter, depression was overshadowed by attention to suggestibility, egocentricity, deficient will, exaggeration, simulation and the like. The change of emphasis appears most with the Parisian group, especially Du Saulle (1883), Richer (1885), and Janet (1907). Concomitantly, with the development of the theories of conversion and dissociation the emphasis on depression and also on deficient will or lack of volition also declined.