You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The subject of hysteria is particularly significant for psychoanalysts, for it was in the process of the study and treatment of this condition that Freud discovered the method of psychoanalysis and developed many of its basic theories. The concepts of fixation and regression grew out of these early studies, as did the formulation that hysterics are fixated at the phallic or early genital phase of libidinal development. Over the years a psychoanalytic characterology emerged which assumed increasing clinical importance. Wilhelm Reich in his Charakteranalyse(12) was the first to state what had become implicit in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis but had not until then been explicitly expressed—namely, that a neurotic character structure underlies every symptom neurosis, and that the optimum goal of psychoanalytic therapy must be not merely the eradication of the neurotic symptom but the changing of the neurotic character structure. It is the underlying character structure of hysteria which is the concern of this communication.
It should be emphasized at the outset that we are admittedly dealing with an abstraction. There is no pure hysterical personality any more than there is a pure compulsive personality. In personality development, residuals of earlier stages of growth can invariably be found interspersed with the characteristics of later stages. Nevertheless, broad clinical differences do exist, and there is some value in attempting to define the main patterns which are associated with these differences.
It is recognized also that there are many ways of classifying