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The study of hysteria in the works of Freud leads us to a review of the birth of the first psychoanalytic concepts. It begins with a historical retrospective focusing on the 19th century, presenting the main predominant trends of medical views on hysteria and the effect they had on Freud's thinking. The corollary of this effect was Freud's involvement with hypnosis and trauma and their relation to hysteria. Subsequently presented is the role played by Freud's self-analysis, the main tool for the formulation of his theory during that period, a theory that includes the creation of neurotica and the investigation into the relationship of hysteria with perversion. Then follows the crucial turning point at which Freud reached the conclusion that there was no one way which would allow us to distinguish memory from phantasy, and the effect of this conclusion on seduction theory and infantile sexuality.
Freud further developed his views on hysteria when, while researching the causes of the early termination of Dora's treatment, he discovered a special class of mental structures which he termed ‘transferences’. The fate of phantasies during a psychoanalytic process and their relation to transference are examined. Finally, the reasons explaining the course of history leading to the abandonment of hysteria for the sake of hysterical personality and the corresponding libidinal type are presented, heralding the later position held by many psychoanalysts that pure forms of hysteria are rare in clinical practice.