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Hysteria — a neurologist's view1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

C. D. Marsden
C. D. Marsden*
Affiliation:
University Department of Neurology, Institute of Psychiatry, and King's College Hospital Medical School, London
*
2 Address for correspondence: Professor C. D. Marsden, Department of Neurology, Institute of Psychiatry, Dc Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF.
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Synopsis

Hysterical symptoms are defined as complaints that are not fully explained by organic or functional neurological disease. Hysterical symptoms are common in neurological practice, accounting for about 1% of neurological diagnoses. Of those with neurological hysterical symptoms, about 80% will not have the hysterical personality, and about 80% will not have Briquet's hysteria. Some 60% will have a physical disease and perhaps as many as 50% will have recognizable psychiatric illness, particularly depression. Others may have unrecognized physical or psychiatric illness. Many hysterical symptoms may be understood in terms of abnormal illness behaviour.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , May 1986 , pp. 277 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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Footnotes

1

This paper was first presented as the Maudsley Lecture, delivered to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 16 November 1984.

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