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SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT
Hysteria was a term was used to characterize a number of psychological symptoms such as blindness, loss of sensation, hallucinations, suggestibility, and highly emotional behavior. It is also sometimes colloquially used to describe excessively emotional behavior. History The term hysteria is at least two thousand years old, and it has been used to describe a variety of conditions. For much of the term’s history, hysteria was a condition attributed exclusively to women. It was thought to occur as a result of problems in the uterus. In ancient Greece, the “wandering womb” theory claimed that a displaced uterus caused hysterical symptoms. In the Victorian era, hysteria was commonly used to refer to female sexual dysfunction, including both high and low libidos. Physicians treated the condition by using vibrators, and by the early 20th century, vibrators were being marketed to women for home treatment of symptoms of hysteria. Sigmund Freud believed that hysterical symptoms were defense mechanisms against sexual conditions, and much of Freudian psychology is based on Freud’s work with women whom he believed to be hysterical. Carl Jung, a colleague of Freud's, treated a young woman named Sabina Spielrein who was also thought to suffer from hysteria. Jung and Freud often discussed Spielrein's case, which had an impact on the theories they developed. Spielrein herself trained as a psychoanalyst and helped introduce the psychoanalytic approach in Russia before she was murdered by Nazis during World War II. Modern Hysteria People are no longer diagnosed with hysteria. Symptoms previously labeled as hysteria are now associated with dissociative and somatoform illnesses, and these illnesses are not gender-specific. Dissociative illnesses include conditions such as
dissociative identity disorder, dissociative fugue, and depersonalization disorder. These can occur when a person feels that he or she is separating from reality. Somatoform illnesses also include symptoms previously associated with hysteria and are characterized by physical illnesses not fully explained by a physical cause. Contemporary psychologists may use the term “mass hysteria” to refer to irrational reactions by large groups of people, such as the response surrounding the Salem Witch Trials. Conversion disorder, formerly called hysteria, a type of mental disorder in which a wide variety of sensory, motor, or psychic disturbances may occur. It is traditionally classified as one of the psychoneuroses and is not dependent upon any known organic or structural pathology. The former term, hysteria, is derived from the Greek hystera, meaning “uterus,” and reflects the ancient notion that hysteria was a specifically female disorder resulting from disturbances in uterine functions. Actually, the symptoms of conversion disorder may develop in either sex and may occur in children and elderly people, although they are observed most commonly in early adult life. Conversion disorder, in its clinically pure form, seems to occur more often among the psychologically and medically naive than among sophisticated persons. The incidence of conversion disorder appears to be diminishing in many areas of the world, probably because of cultural factors such as increasing psychological and medical awareness among the general public. Cases of classical conversion disorder, such as those frequently described by 19th-century clinicians, have become rare. Most psychoneuroses encountered in actual clinical practice are apt to be “mixed” forms in which symptoms of conversion disorder may be found interspersed with other varieties of neurotic disturbances. Isolated conversion disorder symptoms may also occur in conjunction with psychotic disorders. Mass Hysteria Epidemic hysteria or mass hysteria refers to apparently contagious dissociative phenomena that take place in large groups of people or institutions under
a spread that moves down the age scale, beginning with older or higher-status people; a preponderance of female participants **CASES OF MASS HYSTERIA
- DANCE PLAGUE 1518** On July 14, 1518, sin the French town of Strasbourg, a woman named Frau Troffea stepped out of her home and began dancing. Soon, she had a large crowd around her. Some clapped, some laughed while some just gazed in awe. The event was intriguing since Troffeau had no control over her dancing. Neither did she start out of choice, nor did she know how to stop. Rather, she was suffering from what came to be known as the ‘dancing mania’ or ‘dancing plague’. To everyone’s horror, Troffea kept dancing for six days. She would collapse out of exhaustion each night, her shoes soaked in blood, but would wake up the next morning only to start dancing again. As if in a trance, she started dancing again the following day and the next day after that, seemingly unable to stop. Others soon started following suit and she was eventually joined by some 400 other locals who danced uncontrollably alongside her for about two full months. No one knows what caused the townspeople to dance against their will — or why the dancing persisted for so long — but in the end, as many as 100 people died. Historians dubbed this bizarre and deadly event the dancing plague of 1518 and we’re still sorting through its mysteries 500 years later. But as quickly as some had condemned her, many townspeople began to believe that Troffea’s uncontrollable movements were divine intervention. Locals in the area believed in the lore of St. Vitus, a Sicilian saint martyred in 303 A.D. who was said to curse sinners with uncontrollable dancing mania if angered. 2) MONEKY MAN OF DELHI
In May 2001, reports began to circulate in the Indian capital New Delhi around a strange monkey-like creature that was appearing at night and attacking people.[4] Eyewitness accounts were often inconsistent, but tended to describe the creature as about four feet (120 cm) tall,[5] covered in thick black hair, with a metal helmet, metal claws, glowing red eyes and three buttons on its chest. Some reports also claim that the monkey-man wore roller-skates.[6] Others, however, described the Monkey-man as having a more vulpine snout, and being up to eight feet tall, and muscular; it would leap from building to building.[citation needed] Over 350 sightings of the Kala Bandar were reported, as well as around 60 resulting injuries.[7] Two[5] (by some reports, three) people even died when they leapt from the tops of buildings or fell down stairwells in a panic caused by what they thought was the attacker. At one point, exasperated police even issued artist's impression drawings in an attempt to catch the creature. Descriptions of the Monkey Man varied widely, and details were often ambiguous because most of the sightings occurred at night outside in the night sky, with the creature leaping away into the darkness before anyone could get a good look at it —much less a photograph. Some people described an ape-like figure with a dark hairy body and glowing red eyes. Others described the figure as between three and six feet tall, with arms ending in sharp claws or even metal gloves, like Freddy Krueger. Some said instead that it wore a motorcycle helmet, leather jacket, and dark glasses. Most people, however, just reported seeing a shadow of something; overall, there were few first-hand sightings; instead many people described what they heard other people saying they saw. Two decades after the Monkey Man appeared, and then disappeared just as quickly, the case remains one of the strangest examples of mass hysteria panics in modern times. With sober analysis we can hopefully learn from it and be better prepared for the next mass sociogenic panic. WHAT ARE MIRROR NEURONS
the group that such spreading results in collective imitation and, then, the outbreaks of mass hysteria. Secondly, both visual and auditory stimulation have been implicated in MNS [16]. This is in line with the clinical findings that symptoms of mass hysteria were transmitted by sight and sound, and clinical evidence showed that the treatment of mass hysteria consists of separating the participants Thirdly, in addition of motor imitation, recent evidence suggested that MNS plays a key role in emotional contagion – the tendency to catch and feel emotions that are similar to and influenced by those of others [13]. Mass hysteria may simply demonstrate the phenomenon of emotional contagion, in which the experience of an emotion seems to spread to those around us [ Finally, MNS has been proved to have gender difference. That is, when individuals observe an action done by another individual, motor cortex, an automatic reaction of MNS, in female is more active than in male [15]. Thus, female will be more sensitive to the emotional contagion and, according to our hypothesis, likely to develop mass hysteria than male which is in line with the clinical observation that there is a preponderance of female participants in mass hysteria [1]. The above evidence suggests that MNS may play a role in the pathogenesis of mass hysteria. Further studies using neuroimaging techniques (such as fMRI and mu suppression in the EEG) in subjects with mass hysteria are needed to confirm this hypothesis.
