GRSJ224/Medicalization-of-Hysteria

Topic: How the Medicalization of Hysteria is a historical construction of pathologizing women.

Medicalization of Hysteria

Definition/Intro:

The term Hysteria is used to describe a state of an excess of emotion (def) and was used as a valid medical diagnostic all the way until the 1980's. The etymology of the word derives from the Greek word for uterus "hysterika" described from the Greek philosopher Hippocrates in his collection of work known as the Hippocratic Corups.

Hysteria was traditionally known only as a female exclusive mental disorder and was used in the past to simply dismiss genuine physical and mental issues as an excuse and was never truly attempted to be understood for a very long time.

Throughout the historic world, the societal structure that gave status to women as a second class citizen or below that of men has led to some truly unfair practices; of which Hysteria is no different. Sometimes the freedom to simply act freely or to speak ones mind was deemed out of character, was enough justification for society to want to find a medical reason for woman to express themselves. When you look into the symptoms of hysteria - erratic behavior we must first look into the context of what was considered erratic in the first place. Sometimes, even fighting back against a man was considered out of the ordinary and would have been erratic, and the end result of trying to find a medical reasoning or medicalization of such a behavior would have been an easy justification for keeping woman oppressed in society. 

Diagnostic:

Throughout history, the definition and symptoms of Hysteria have varied, but they all follow similar patterns including mood swings, anxiety, fainting, insomnia, high sex drive and erratic behavior. Historically thought to be caused by a wandering womb, the theory of medicine postulated that organs can shift in the body, and as a result of something even as simple as a sneeze, it was said that when a woman's womb could be dislodged and misaligned, causing sudden mood changes and erratic behaviors known as Hysteria. Everything from herbs/scent, punishment, electro-therapy, sex and absence of sexual intercourse were tried as possible treatments and in the worst of cases women were condemned to psychiatric wards for their behaviors.

In modern day, this collection of symptoms have been replaced as more understanding of the human body and psyche has improved. In a world with less patriarchal norms, Female Hysteria is no longer a recognized diagnosis and health care professionals have separated the generic label of hysteria into different general neutral terms. In the psychological world, things like anxiety are no longer seen as a gender specific issue but a more general human response to stress where as more severe symptoms like fainting, depression or having fits which would be classically classified as hysteria are now known as "Conversion disorder".

Medicalization:

Medicalization refers to the process in which the medical community applies a definition to a human condition so it can be treated as a medical condition. This involves studying, diagnosing, treatment and prevention of a condition. While these can often lead to bettering humanity as it has in the case of coming up with vaccines, drugs to combat disease and understanding the effects of depression and stress, there is often a cautionary grain of salt that needs to be taken especially from a sociological perspective as to what can and should be pathologicalized.

The case of Female hysteria is one such a case where the effects of medicalization have been widely accepted in the medical world and used to explain away real issues dis-empowered women had with their biological self due to the oversimplification that medicalizing of hysteria was.

History:

In the earliest days even before being put into written words, civilization in ancient Egypt had described symptoms similar to what was classified as hysteria. From tonic-clonic seizure and a sense of suffocation, the theory of the wandering womb was seen to have begun to form as ancient Egyptians would often attempt to align a woman's uterus position with aromatherapy.

Entering the Greek world, this is where we begin to see the medicalization of the Female Hysteria take place. With the attempts of Hippocrates writing about the wandering womb and hence coining the term Hysteria. Building on the Egyptians, the cures for a hysterical woman was also a combination of scene therapy as well as prescribing sexual intercourse to re-align the uterus. It is also noted that this is also the time that Hippocrates and many other often sited afflictions such as Hysteria as one of the reasons to not allow women into matters of state and city affairs as it was feared that at any moment, a hysterical woman would not have the capacity to think clearly.

Moving into the middle and early modern age era, the treatment of Hysterical woman and the understanding of the issue has relatively stayed the same but now the cause has shifted slightly away from a biological problem to that of a spiritual. It is in these times that women who exhibited strange behaviors such as ticks and other abnormalities were started to believed to be caused by the devil or because the women were secretly witches. It was these misleading accusations that let thousands of woman being executed as witches in those times, the most famous of these incidents being the Salem witch trials in Oregon.

Used in Dis-empowering Women:

From the time of the Greeks to Freud, Hysteria was seen as an exclusive female mental disorder which gave society a powerful tool to keep women oppressed. Throughout history Hysteria has also been seen as a political tool often used to stifle woman's rights movements and invalidate arguments for women fighting for equal rights. As we have seen in the classical Greek society, arguments made against woman being able to hold political office due to their hysteric nature.

There is an argument to be made that hysteria was a convenient disease used to oppress the societal role of women. The root cause of which is a societal one rather than a biological. While the stigma and medical use of the diagnosis hysteria is no longer used in the developed world, its effects on how society views women and the impression it has left has been a negative one we all must deal with even today. Terms like mass hysteria describing groups of panicked individuals and the slag of the word hysterical describing female fits of anger when expressing emotion are all due to the history of how society has treated those words and women in the past.