Hysteria

Hysteria is an illness which has now been divided into two groups of disorders, conversion disorders (more recently called Functional Neurological Symptom Disorders), and Dissociative Disorders; it is no longer a recognized name for an illness. Hysteria was mostly diagnosed in women, and was at one point believed to be caused by a woman's womb wandering around the body.

Mass hysteria
The Royal Free Hospital outbreak of epidemic myalgic encephalomyelitis in 1955 was attributed to "mass hysteria" by psychiatrists McEvedy and Beard, who never examined any patients.

Hysteria as psychosonatic symptoms
Prof. Michael Sharpe, a psychiatrist and proponent of the biopsychosocial model of ME/CFS, claims hysteria is a psychosomatic condition consisting of medically unexplained symptoms:

Notable studies

 * 2005, Eliot Slater's the myth of the non-existence of hysteria

Articles, talks and interviews

 * 2013, When symptoms are a mystery

Learn more

 * Wikipedia - Hysteria