Hysteria, an illness and its interpretation
Hysteria describes a situation whereby one loses self control due to a overwhelming fear triggered by bad events which occurred in ones past. This word has in the recent past ceased to be used and instead, other words like psychosomatic an psychogenic are used to refer to this particular condition. Hysteria is also commonly diagnosed as a somatization disorder. The major symptoms of this disease include, partial blindness, loss of hearing, paralysis, anesthesia and other mental disturbances. Hysteria is believed to be a disorder that affects only women although it is not a gender based disease. This perception is largely dependent on the early definitions of the disease by psychiatrists and other medical practitioners. The origin of hysteria can be traced back to ancient Greece where Hippocrates believed that when a woman’s uterus becomes too light and dry due to lack of sex, the uterus wanders upwards leading to compression of the diaphragm, lungs and the heart and hence resulting in this mental disorder (Veith 1965).
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A prominent physician, Galen also believed that hysteria was a disease caused by sexual deprivation in women. In the past, the hysterical disorder was commonly thought to be a woman’s disease which was believed to be caused by uterine disturbances. It was quite prevalent in virgins, widowed women, nuns and occasionally in married women who were sexually unsatisfied. In fact, most psychiatrists in this era advised parents not to allow their daughters to ride horses, eat vanilla or read romantic novels for fear that they might become hysterical. The greatest recommended remedy for this condition was for one to have sex if they were married or to get married if they were single or if all the above options failed, then the patient was given a pelvic massage by a professional psychiatrist.
This perception brought a major conflict in the early19th century between sex as a reproductive act and sex as an erotic act. In this era, sex was only meant for reproduction and not for pleasure a fact that led to sexual dissatisfaction in many women and resulted in increased cases of hysteria.
In the 19th century, not much about the disease was known and the public would isolate the sick making their condition even worse. At that time, medical practitioners had not yet discovered the difference between mind diseases and diseases affecting the brain. The most accepted cure at this time was a ‘complete rest cure’ which isolated the patient from the rest of the society and it prohibited the patient from undertaking any type of physical and mental activities (Gilman 1997).
However, this ‘total bed rest’ cure was not very effective and this can be clear seen from Gilman Perkin’s story entitled ‘The yellow wall-paper’ written in the tear 1891.In this story, Gilman Perkins, a famous U.S writer on feminine and social issues presents a situation where by a woman is diagnosed with the hysteria condition and total rest is prescribed on her. In her story, the woman goes into deep depression and eventually, she becomes completely mad as a result of isolation. This is a fiction story, although it is based on Gilman’s life experience after she was found to be suffering from hysteria and advised to get total rest, a move that restricted her from writing and her feminism was seen as a symptom of uterine illness. She however later recovered from the condition and became a great writer on feminine and other social issues (Perkins 1892).
The debate about female hysteria was at its peak in the 19th century and during this time, it was perceived that women with this kind of mental illness were not being sexually satisfied which in most cases was not true. Major symptoms of female hysteria included; nervousness, sleeplessness, irritability, low libido, loss of food appetite, fluid retention in the lower abdomen among others. Fortunately, this perception has changed with time partly because people have become more and more knowledgeable in matters concerning psychology and treatment of psychiatric disorders. Apart from hysteria, other mental discourses were also common, in women in the early 19th century.
In Great Britain for example, during the Victorian era (19th century), madness as a mental illness was greatly studied by the various medical institutions of men and its relation to women was critically analysed (Kohhen 41). The relationship between the female gender and madness was studied under the hysteria condition which as mentioned before was seen as a woman’s disease. In the early years of the 19th century, there was a general view developed by male medical practitioners that women were more susceptible to mental disorders than their male counterparts. This they argued was due to the unstable nature of the women reproductive parts which interfered with self control to matters pertaining to their sexual health (Gilman 1997).
This ‘women madness’ was pathologised in that, it was believed that women in upper or middle class social status were viewed as weak, irrational, emotionally unstable and were likely to be brought down by any minor stress. This ideology had very negative social consequences since it served as a reason to restrict women from pursuing their professional interests, exercising their political rights and getting quality education. It also served to keep them in restricted areas where they were closely monitored and dictated on by their male counterparts.
On the other hand, women have expressed different views regarding their mental health issues. For instance, in the book Women and madness (Chesler 1972), the writer believes that women have been portrayed as being mentally weak because of their consent to conform to sex roles and for their agency to step outside their feminine roles. This agency is seen as the desire for women to rediscover and redefine their place in the society (Showalter 1987).
By mid-19th century, psychoanalysis classified hysteria as a mental disorder. However, by the late 19th century, the condition formerly known as female hysteria started to be considered as sexual dissatisfaction. During this period, the most recommended treatment for this condition was massage of the female genitalia, use of warm water sprays and vibrators to cause orgasm.
According to Jary (2000), a mental disorder is a disease which affects the mind, whose effects can manifest transitory depression, anxiety or even as psychoses and this condition most of the time may require serious medical attention or even hospitalisation.
There are various mental disorders associated with women which mainly include eating disorders commonly known as Anorexia Nervosa and physical self harm by means of burning, taking poison or causing any other bodily harm. Mental illness in women is also highly characterised by many cases of attempted suicide and increased personality disorders. Many mental disorders and depressions are as a result of hormonal changes in a woman’s reproductive health cycle as she develops from pre-menstrual to menopause stages of her life.
Women who are most vulnerable to mental disorders are those who have reached the child bearing age, old women, lesbians and bisexuals, commercial sex workers, drug addicts as well as women with other disabilities (Wilkson 1994).
In many societies, women who deviate from the society’s cultural beliefs and norms were pathologised as being mentally ill. According to Smith (1995), the whole idea of madness was a society’s way of defining and dealing with any unacceptable behaviour especially among women.
It is also clear that in the recent past, the medical field has put less consideration towards women’s mental health as opposed to men’s mental health. That is, women are easily labelled as being mentally ill than men even without very serious medical diagnosis (Wilkinson 1994).For example, Many general psychiatrists consider a woman with certain symptoms to be psychosomatic whereas a man suffering from similar symptoms will be considered normal (Rogers 2000).
Mental health disorders among women have traditionally been seen to be in dire need of urgent attention control by the medical practitioners. However, the medical profession views women as sufferers of a disease which can only be controlled by medical experts and by use of psychotropic drugs (Rogers 2000). By around 1970’s, two psychotropic drugs namely; Valium and Diazepam were used to replace Librium as tranquilizers. Many prescriptions were made mainly to middle-class women who were suffering from minor depressions and anxiety.
According to social feminists, there are various factors which lead to women’s metal breakdown and this include; poverty, social exclusion, widowhood, lack of power, ethnic origin, too many responsibilities and expectations from the society among others. The link between poverty and mental illness was discovered by Brown in a research he carried out in South London the late1960s which showed that more than 30 percent of women in that region suffered from depression at that particular time. Moreover, it has been established that, although women do much of the overall work worldwide, they own less than 1 percent of the world’s wealth and thus women are generally poor (Kohhen 2000). Research has further shown that women who are employed or are economically stable are more stable mentally than unemployed women. However, work related stresses for employed women can also trigger depression (Wilkinson 1994).
Other feminists have attributed the mental health problems in women to social factors. They view domestic violence, sexual abuse, and lack of power, motherhood responsibilities and heterosexual behaviour as the main factors which cause mental illnesses in women. It has been established that there is a close relationship between sexual abuse in childhood and mental illnesses in adulthood. That is, more than 50 percent of those women who were abused sexually when they were young were more likely to suffer from mental disorders later in their adult life (Pilgrim 1999). These studies clearly show that from cultural and historical point of view men and women’s mental health issues are perceived differently and the psychiatric studies and public policies are yet to correct the gender imbalances in the society.
As mentioned earlier, the issue of hysteria in women has been well discussed in Gilman Perkin’s story entitled the ‘yellow wall-paper’. She lived in the 19th century and died at the age of 74 in the year 1935. The ‘Yellow wallpaper’ was published in the year 1892 and the story was meant to reveal how women suffering from hysteria were negatively portrayed in the society and how they suffered under the ‘total rest’ prescription meant to treat the condition. In this short fictional story, Gilman portrayed a social-cultural perspective of hysteria and states that isolating women from their normal duties simply because they are suffering from the condition was wrong and unethical as it only subjected the woman to much torture so that she would never want to be hysterical ever again. She further indicated that the social perception of hysteria being a woman’s disease was unfounded and gender biased. The story further indicates that In the 19th century (Victorian era), women were highly oppressed and their roles were to be good wives and mothers. They were not allowed to exercise any political rights like voting neither were they allowed to pursue their professional interests. They were expected to be pure and submissive to their husbands. Gilman believed in fighting for women’s rights a move that was seen to contradict the social beliefs of that era. In addition in this Victorian era, women diagnosed with this condition were though to be faking an illness in order to attract the attention of their husbands (Perkins 1892).
When Gilman was diagnosed as being slightly hysterical, total rest cure, isolation and overfeeding was the medication prescribed on her. On the contrary, the condition did not improved and in her opinion, she believed that work rather than rest would have helped her recovery. This story however does not provide a clear picture of the disease and it instead concentrates on demystifying hysteria and resists any attempt to clearly distinguish sanity from insanity. The writer is more interested in liberating women and improving the overall perception of the disease rather than suggesting ways of reducing cases of hysteria in women.
Sander Gilman, an American Literature and cultural writer showed that pathology and hysteria was not only influenced by gender but also to the ethnic origin. Incidences of mental health illnesses were high among black people than in other ethnic groups. In his book entitled hysteria illness beyond Freud, he explains that the term hysteria especially in the 19th century was used mostly to describe an emotional mental disorder which was used to oppress women. It helped to draw attention to the socio-cultural history of how the disorder was perceived by medical practitioners, patients and writers in N.America and Europe from the 19th century to the early years of the 20th century. Today, this hysterical condition is commonly known as post-partum depression and new methods of treating it have come up as a result of increased knowledge about the disease and improved technologies (Gilman 1997).
In general, from the above discussion on the history of hysteria and mental disorders shows that women’s and men’s mental health illnesses are quite different and such cases are more prevalent in women than in men. According to radical feminists, economic independence and women empowerment would go a long way in helping reduce cases of mental disorders in women.
Some hysterical disorders such as somatization last for a lifetime while others disorders may disappear after a short time. Some forms of hysteria are however recurrent, that is, they recur after a short time. For a person suffering from this kind of a mental illness, he or she should seek the help of a physician who may administer some psychotherapy and enlighten the patient more about the condition. A suitable health care environment is also necessary and so is behavioral therapy. As it has been mentioned earlier, patient isolation and total bed rest is not the cure this condition.
Work Cited.
Chelser. Women ; Madness. New York City: Double day publishers, 1972.
Gilman ,Perkins. The Yellow Wall-paper. Dove Publications, 1997.
Gilman Sander, King Helen, Showalter Elaine and Porter Roy. Hysteria illness Beyond Freud. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1993.
Jary and Jary. Sociology dictionary. 3rd ed. Glasgow: Harper Collins, 2000.
Kohhen. Ed. Women Health. London: Routledge, 2000.
Rogers, Stainton. Gender and Sexuality. Buckingham: Open Univ. Press, 2000.
Showalter, Elaine. Women, Madness and the English Culture. London: Virago, 1987.
Smith and Nairne. Dealing with Depression. London: Women Press, 1995.
Veith, Ilza. History of Hysteria. Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press, 1965.
Whitfield. Memory and Abuse. Deerfield Beech Florida: Health Publishers, 1995.
Wilkinson and Kitzinger. Female Perspectives on Health. London: Taylor and Francis, 1994.
Pilgrim and Rogers. Sociology of Mental Health. Buckingham: Open Univ. Press, 1999.
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