Hysterical Psychosis: A Historical Survey

302 Pages·1995·26.747 MB·English

by  Katrien Libbrecht

Hysterical
Psychosis

Katrien Libbrecht
Hysterical
Psychosis
a historical survey
First published 1995 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 94-8720
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Libbrecht, Katrien.
Hysterical psychosis: a historical survey/Katrien Libbrecht
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56000-181-X
1. Hysteria-Research-History. I. Title
RC532.L49 1994
616.85'24 '009-dc20 94-8720
CIP
ISBN 13: 978-1-56000-181-2 (hbk)
Contents
Foreword vii
Julien Quackelbeen
Introduction and Acknowledgements xi
Part One The Turn of the Century: Recognition
of Hysterical Madness, Heyday of the
Hysterical Fit 1
Introduction to Part One 3
1. The Psychiatric Coordinates 6
The French Alienists 6
The German Classification Systems 18
2. The School of the Salpetriere
Charcot 38
3. German Neurological Studies
Freud 67
4. Congresses on Hysteria 103
Part Two The Interbellum: Hysteria in the Margin,
Schizophrenia as a Refuge of Hysterical
Madness 115
Introduction to Part Two 117
5. The War Neuroses, Twilight States,
Confusion 119
6. Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis
and Schizophrenia 125
7. The German Advance
Claude’s Schizoses 142
8. General Developments 151
vi Hysterical Psychosis
Part Three The 1950s to the Present: The Marginal
Psychotic Existence of Hysterical Mad­
ness, The Numerical Diaspora of Hys­
teria 163
Introduction to Part Three 165
9. The Vanishing Act of Hysteria in the
Psychiatric Field 167
10. Hysteria Re-enters Psychiatry as a
Distinct Psychosis 184
11. Psychoanalysis, too, Renounces Hysteria 207
Conclusion 231
Bibliography 247
Index 277
Foreword
This book, Hysterical Psychosis: A Historical Survey by Kat-
rien Libbrecht, is the only publication to date on the history of
mad or seemingly psychotic hysteria. In case there are some
reservations as to its completeness, one should recognize the fact
that it excels in readability and that it is built upon a number of
exceptional and original theses.
Ms. Libbrecht holds the view that someone should review the
history of clinical psychiatry at a time when psychiatry itself no
longer seems capable of doing so. Should clinical psychology
assume this task? Or will the responsibility be a mere hobby for
a handful of rare psychiatrists with an interest in the past? Since
psychoanalytic curiosity has instilled in the author a sense of his­
tory, she has chosen to accept the seemingly paradoxical mission
of not letting the historical past of clinical psychiatry go to
waste, while also engaging in establishing psychoanalysis as a
radically different clinical field.
Her intent is not merely based in science-historical motives.
For she believes that historical perspectives can be made mean­
ingful for everyday reality too, i.e., the clinical approach the suf­
fering individual can benefit when one acknowledges how new
wine acquires its flavor from old casks. One can interpret the
great underlying structural questions in their current ways when
they represent themselves to us in the different stages of the
psychiatric past. A differential diagnosis and a suitably modulat­
ed treatment are more closely connected with the problem of
differences with regard to structure than they are with the con­
spicuous symptomatology and with the phenomenology with
which a person announces himself.
The further particularization of the above thesis brings Ms.
Libbrecht to the hypothesis that the deep study of this clinical
viii Hysterical Psychosis
past is a necessary step—at least it should be for every theoreti­
cal position taken by the clinical therapist. The fact that—in this
sense—this is generally neglected applies not only to all those
who are devoted to the Brief Reactive Psychosis (D.S.M.-I13-R)
but also to Freudo-Lacanian circles.
Considering the consequences for treatment, it is no small feat
on her part that she has been able to illustrate this quite convinc­
ingly by means of her study of the so-called hysterical psychosis.
Either theory categorizes the seemingly psychotic phenomena as
psychotic—in which case one is at the mercy of a form of thera­
py that offers no prospects. Or if one neglects these phenomena
—sticking to the tried and tested standard—treatment of this
seemingly psychotic hysteria causes the therapist to get stuck in
a rut because of a lack of suitable modulation of the treatment.
History already warns us to guard us against these two major
difficulties of the clinical practice with such patients.
The next link in the cascade of theses connects the historical
concern with what is characteristic of psychoanalysis. The ana­
lytical treatment is to verbalize the past to make it a "past" suf­
fering. This may turn out to be a far-reaching process. In accord­
ance with this vision the author studies psychiatry’s history. In
the same manner a patient puts his or her suffering into words,
the writing down of the past should be a rewriting of the prob­
lems as they reveal themselves in the clinical field.
The next logical and ultimate link is made up of a frame the­
ory from which the whole text is constructed. It is not solely a
return to the writings of Freud and to the Prefreudian clinical
field of the seemingly psychotic hysteria. Rather it deals with the
construction of this history along the three axes that Freud ac­
knowledged in the way in which the hysteric introduces material
into the treatment. First there is the linear-chronological axis.
Then there is the concentrical-thematical organization of the
material around a nucleus which—in this case—is the fascination
with the object of examination, that can only be approached
through resistance. Finally, there is the logical-dynamical order
that reveals itself through the intercutting lines branching out to
Foreword ix
make up a type of tree structure.
What makes this study, a truly analytically-inspired history, so
intriguing is the fact that this frame theory is actually followed
throughout and developed in its three aspects. It proves that the
scientific-historical dimension can indeed be compatible with an
approach that respects both what is characteristic of the material
as well as what is specific to the clinical formation.
JULIEN QUACKELBEEN