This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Møllerhøj, J. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Encountering hysteria: doctors' and patients' perspectives on hysteria in Denmark, 1875—1918

Gunløgsgade 1, 2. tv., DK-2300 Copenhagen S., Denmark, jette{at}brillebo.dk

The history of hysteria stretches over several millennia and contains a plethora of different understandings and interpretations. This paper focuses on a central part of its Danish history, from the last decades of the nineteenth-century `age of nervousness' until the end of World War I. It is argued that the understanding and negotiation of hysteria and its explanations took place in a complex interaction between doctors and their patients. Whereas the psychiatrists during this period moved towards an understanding of hysteria as a functional disorder, the patients, of whom approximately one-third were male, maintained that their illness was of somatic origin, and closely related to social, economic and working conditions.

Key Words: Denmark • functional neurosis • gender • history • hysteria • medical encounter • patient files • psychiatry

History of Psychiatry, Vol. 20, No. 2, 163-183 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0957154X08094853


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?