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In his introduction to the book, Bollas lets the reader know that the text will follow what he calls ‘criss-crossing continua’ (p. 2). He describes his task as providing a theory which weaves the famous traits of hysteria into the hysteric form. Weave is perhaps the crucial word because the theory, both of the influences contributing to the emergence of the hysteric and the nature of hysteria, follows an intricate path of interlacing threads through the chapters. The book is based on lectures given by Bollas and he has to some extent stuck to that format. The impetus for the lectures came out of clinical supervisions in the United States and the cases which were presented were ‘clearly hysterics but the majority of the presenters thought of them as borderline personalities’ (p. 2). He goes on to say:
Although in the past, supervisees had certainly presented a variety of character disorders, by the mid-1980s almost every case presented was hysteric. What was I to make of this? Gradually, it seemed to me to be an unconscious demand in the therapeutic community to reconsider hysteria. Disenchantment with the over-embracing concept of the borderline diagnosis was clear, and thinking the hysteric through the theoretical lenses of the borderline personality had become something of a tragedy. (p. 2)
The theory, he says, is fundamentally Freudian, although he at times disagrees with Freud. Other influences are the British Object Relations school (Winnicott and Klein), Lacan and, importantly, the patients from whom he has learned about hysteria.
The first chapter called ‘The Characters of Analysis’ describes the object relation, in particular to the primary object which distinguishes the narcissist, the borderline, the schizoid, the pervert and the hysteric. The hysteric differs from the others in that they witness (my italics) intense, but detached, maternal love of the self. What is, however, absent is ‘an unconscious sense of the maternal desire for the child's sexual