Hysterical neurosis: illusory mystery

Ancient Greek doctors can sympathize with modern psychiatrists: the number of patients who are diagnosed with hysterical neurosis is becoming more and more. About this disease is known for a long time, although, of course, in our time it is viewed under a completely different angle and give it a different meaning.

The ancient Greeks believed that the cause of hysteria is sexual dissatisfaction. So the ideas of Freud are not at all original. And feminists would be very offended by the Greeks, because they believed that the disease is, well, only in women. In our time, there are quite a few cases of illness in men.

In modern psychopathology, the cause of the disease "hysterical neurosis" is considered to be an unhealthy way of avoiding the personality of situations that it can mentally traumatize. Of course, we all try to get away from the pain, but tantrums do it more often and more successfully than the rest. Ways of avoidance are diverse, they reflect the personal experience of this or that person. In general, this diagnosis was rarely raised until recently, because medicine has come to understand the underlying causes of hysteria more recently. Now this diagnosis is put more often and more boldly.

As a rule, psychiatrists have to work with two forms of hysteria. Conversion and dissociative. Hysterical neurosis manifests itself very differently.

Conversion form

The first type of disease is associated with complaints about somatic symptoms, that is, a person has some abnormal sensations in the body, pain and so on. And he does not deceive, he is really bad, so you can not identify hysterics and simulators. Although people who are prone to hysteria, often like to lie. Symptoms have deep psychological reasons. Often these people undergo many examinations from other doctors, not psychiatrists, who often complain about mysterious and intriguing symptoms. Although often the symptoms are typical:

1. Seizures (often look like cramps, the patient behaves very brightly and expressively) in front of other people, and the patient often does not want to seizure;
2. Hypersensitivity or its loss;
3. Frozen in one pose in a stressful situation;
4. Visual symptoms: duplication of the image, violation of the three-dimensionality of vision, clouded vision of objects, which then appears, then disappears;
5. Hearing impairment: from selective to total deafness;
6. Visceral symptoms: choking, nausea, lump in the throat, cough for no reason;
7. False pregnancy: a woman stops monthly, her stomach grows, in the morning she feels sick, and her breast is enlarged. Although there is no pregnancy.

Typically, these symptoms occur in situations that the patient would prefer to avoid, and this emotion is so strong that socially acceptable symptoms begin to appear.

Dissociative form

In this case, there is also an internal conflict between desires and necessity. Hysterical neurosis is manifested by the fact that the patient indulges in his strong desires, not wanting to take responsibility for what is happening. He forgets that he is frightened or annoyed. Of course, it is worth to distinguish between hysterical amnesia and amnesia, provoked by disruption of the brain. In the second case, the process of storing and collecting information is abnormal. And hysterical amnesia is associated with the selectivity of memory. That is, the person has the true information, but it is safely hidden in the depths of the unconscious and it can be very difficult to bring it to the surface. Some psychiatrists attribute hysteria to the phenomenon of multiple personality. That is, the very split personality, when one person does not know about the existence of another, while there are intervals of time about which a person can not remember anything.

How to get rid of a neurosis? First, we need to identify what exactly causes the maximum stress in the patient. Perhaps, it will be necessary to radically change the scope of activity. Secondly, the patient needs to learn how to work with a stressful condition, and not to drive him inside himself. Thirdly, medium-intensive long-term sports are recommended.

Is it possible to treat neuroses with homeopathy? As a supporter of traditional medicine, I will answer - no. The fact is that no "magic pill" is able to solve the original problem. Because of the placebo effect, the disease may temporarily recede. But she will definitely return. So it is better to be treated with psychotherapy and using a minimum of medications.