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IAM INTERESTED IN THE BEHAVIORS and ways of relating which express the character traits we call hysterical. In my view, close examination of the interpersonal processes of hysterical engagement will clarify the development of hysterical pathology and lead to a clearer picture of the underlying psychic structure.
In what follows I will paint the picture of hysteria in broad strokes. It may appear I am describing the whole personality, or asserting all hysterical people are the same. I know this is not so. Each of the qualities I describe should be viewed on a continuum, ranging from deep pathology to normality. If I focus on the negative extreme, it is to clarify those underlying issues which are obscured in more subtle description. In hysterical fashion, I have chosen not to specify the diagnostic criteria of hysteria but will try to evoke interest in those qualities which give hysteria its flavor and style.
Furthermore, in my own thinking, I do not focus on the totality of the hysterical personality. I am interested in what I see as the mechanisms of hysteria—which in fact appear in all persons under the right conditions. In the throes of hysterical processes—laughing, crying, flirting, or telling a joke—any of us may illustrate the mechanisms I will describe, if only as a fraction of his personality.
The frustration of analytic technique and confusion of symptomatology in hysteria were first questioned by Marmor (1953). His hysterical patients showed mixed character traits and were not amenable to the rapid analytic cure predicted by the libidinal model. Sexuality, while flagrant, did not seem primary. He argued