Friend and colleague of Jacques Lacan, Dr Charles Melman offers a key to interpreting the enigma that is hysteria, through a detailed study of its historical, social and cultural determinants. Delivered over two years, this foundational text is the first longitudinal approach to the study of hysteria. Peppered with invaluable clinical examples, the author guides us through difficult concepts as he links hysteria to the birth of psychoanalysis and demonstrates how the reader is involved in this discourse. This work restores hysteria to its central place in the structure of neurosis and helps us understand some of the biggest problems facing modernity.