Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media, Volume 2This provocative and illuminating book charts the persistence of a cultural phenomenon. Tales of alien abduction, chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War syndrome, and the resurgence of repressed memories in psychotherapy are just a few of the signs that we live in an age of hysterical epidemics. As Elaine Showalter demonstrates, the triumphs of the therapeutic society have not been able to prevent the appearance of hysterical disorders, imaginary illnesses, rumor panics, and pseudomemories that mark the end of the millenium. Like the witch-hunts of the 1690s and the hypnotic cures of the 1980s, the hysterical syndromes of the 1990s reflect the fears and anxieties of a culture on the edge of change. Showalter highlights the full range of contemporary syndromes and draws connections to earlier times and settings, showing that hysterias mutate and are renamed; under the right circumstances, everyone is susceptible. Today, hysterical epidemics are not spread by viruses or vapors but by stories, narratives Showalter calls hystories that are created "in the interaction of troubled patients and sympathetic therapists... circulated through self-help books, articles in newspapers and magazines, TV talk shows, popular films, the Internet, even literary criticism." Though popular stereotypes of hysteria are still stigmatizing, largely because of their associations with women, many of the most recent manifestations receive respectful and widespread coverage. In an age skeptical of Freud and the power of unconscious desires and conflicts, personal troubles are blamed on everything from devil-worshipping sadists to conspiring governments. The result is the potential for paranoia and ignorance on a massive scale. Skillfully surveying the condition of hysteria-its causes, cures, famous patients, and doctors-in the twentieth century, Showalter also looks at literature, drama, and feminist representations of the hysterical. Hysterias, she shows, are always with us, a kind of collective coping mechanism for changing times; all that differs are names and labels, and at times of crisis, individual hysterias can become contagious. Insightful and sensitive, filled with fascinating new perspectives on a culture saturated with syndromes of every sort, Hystories is a gift of good sense from one of our best critics. |
Contents
The Hysterical Hot Zone | 3 |
Defining Hysteria | 14 |
The History of Hysteria The Great Doctors | 30 |
Politics Patients and Feminism | 49 |
Hysterical Men | 62 |
CULTURES | 79 |
Hysterical Narratives | 81 |
Hysteria and the Histrionic | 100 |
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Common terms and phrases
accusations alien abduction American anorexia anxiety argued become believe body called cause century Charcot Chronic Fatigue Syndrome clinical conspiracy Courage to Heal culture cure described diagnosis disease dissociative doctors Dora Dora's emotional experience False Memories fantasies father feel female feminism feminist critics fiction Frederick Crews French Freud gender Gulf War syndrome Hacking Herman hospital hypnosis hysterical epidemics hysterical symptoms hysterical women Ian Hacking Ibid ical illness incest Johnson journalist Judith Lewis Herman Lacan literary critics lives London Mack male hysteria mental Micale mother neurasthenia neurosis nineteenth-century novel Osler's panic patients percent physicians political psychiatric psychiatrists psychoanalysis psychological rape recovered memory reported repressed Rewriting the Soul Salpêtrière satanic ritual abuse Sherrill Mulhern silence Simon Wessely Sinason social stories Strieber suffering survivors theories therapists therapy tion told trauma ufologists University Press veterans victims witch-hunts woman writes wrote York