Revue Française De Psychanalyse. XXXVII, 1973: Hysteria: Dream and Revolution. René Major. Pp. 303-312.

The author contrasts the theories of hysteria developed by Freud and Charcot and the theories of language implicit in their views. Before psychoanalysis, the hysteric expressed unconscious material in visual representations. Charcot was visually oriented, and his theory of hysteria was restricted by his preference for the visual element in the hysteric's language. The principal technical innovation in Freud's method was to withdraw the therapist from the visual field of the hysteric and force the patient to use verbalization. By placing the acoustical element in the dominant position, Freud forced hysterics to transform their cries and convulsions into words. They thus had to rediscover in language their internal hysteria in such a way that topographical, dynamic, and economic modifications could be made. The Freudian method thus places unconscious fantasy at the center of the symptomatic compromise and favors bringing the fantasies into consciousness while weakening their effects. In the psychoanalytic method emphasis is placed on the power of language to effect a cure by linking word presentations to affect. In the development of a psychoanalytic theory of hysteria, even in the development of psychoanalysis itself, Freud's conception of language led to a revolution. In carrying out this revolution, however, Freud caused the familiar hysteric of his time to disappear. The hysteric may return from this repression, but only under the new conditions imposed by psychoanalysis. The cultural acceptance of Freudian theories has reduced their impact. Many techniques which seemingly derive from psychoanalysis are merely surreptitious reintroductions of suggestion. Thus hysteria still poses many problems for psychoanalysis, though now in ways more subtle than in the past. The seductive hold of the patient may be set up again when interpretations are allowed to become merely new forms of suggestion or influence.