The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, vol 10 | Page 4

(Fraser) Post-traumatic
Nervous and Mental Disorders (Benon) Primitive Races, Sex Worship and Symbolism in
(Brown)* Primitive Tribes, Psychoneuroses among (Coriat)* Psychical, Adventurings in
(Bruce) Psychobiology, (Dunlap) Psychology, Educational (Thorndike) Psychology,
General and Applied (Munsterberg) Psychoneuroses, Treatment of * Sexual Tendencies
in Monkeys, etc (Hamilton) Sleep and Sleeplessness (Bruce) Social Psychology
(McDougall)

INDEX TO SUBJECTS Socrates, Psychopathology of (Karpas)* Stammering, Remarks
upon Dr. Coriat's paper (Solomon)* Stuttering, Experimental Study of (Fletcher)
Stuttering, Psychological Analysis of (Swift)* Supernatural Explanations (Williams)*
Tics (Solomon)*

CONTRIBUTORS TO VOLUME X Anon. Arps, George F. Bellamy, Raymond Brown,
Sanger Carrington, H. Castle, W. E. Clark, L. Pierce Coriat, Isador H. Dearborn, George
V. N. Elliott, R. M. Emerson, L. E. Fraser, Donald Hall, G. Stanley Harrington, Milton A.
Horton, Lydiard. Holt, E. B. Jones, Ernest Karpas, Morns J. MacCurdy, John T. Myerson,
A. Putnam, James J. Solomon, Meyer Southard, E. E. Swift, Walter B. Taylor, E. W.
Treadway, Walter L. Troland, Leonard T. Van Renterghem, A. W. Van Renterghem, A.
W. Williams, Tom A.

THE JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
HYSTERIA AS A WEAPON IN MARITAL CONFLICTS
BY A. MYERSON, M.D.

Clinical Director and Pathologist, Taunton State Hospital Taunton State Hospital Papers,
1914-5
THE progress in our understanding of hysteria has come largely through the elaboration
of the so-called mechanisms by which the symptoms arise. These mechanisms have been
declared to reside or to have their origin in the subconsciousness or coconsciousness. The
mechanisms range all the way from the conception of Janet that the personality is
disintegrated owing to lowering of the psychical tension to that of Freud, who conceives
all hysterical symptoms as a result of dissociation arising through conflicts between
repressed sexual desires and experiences and the various censors organized by the social
life. Without in any way intending to set up any other general mechanism or to enter into
the controversy raging concerning the Freudian mechanism, which at present is the storm
center, the writer reports a case in which the origin of the symptoms can be traced to a
more simple and fairly familiar mechanism, one which, in its essence, is merely an
intensification of a normal reaction of many women to marital difficulties. In other words,
women frequently resort to measures which bring about an acute discomfort upon the
part of their mate, through his pity, compassion and self-accusation. They resort to tears
as their proverbial weapon for gaining their point. In this case the hysterical symptoms
seem to have been the substitute for tears in a domestic battle.
Case History--Patient is a woman, aged thirty-eight, of American birth and ancestry.
Family history is negative so far as mental disease is concerned, but there seems to have
been a decadence of stock as manifested in the steady dropping of her family in the social
scale. She is one of two children, there being a brother, who, from all accounts, is a fairly
industrious, but poverty-stricken farmer. Her early childhood was spent in a small village
in Massachusetts. She received but little education, largely because she had no desire to
study and no aptitude for learning, although she is by no means feeble-minded. The
menstrual periods started at fourteen, and have been without any noteworthy
accompanying phenomena ever since. History is negative so far as other diseases are
concerned. She worked as a domestic and in factories until she was married for the first
time at the age of twenty. She had no children by this marriage. It is stated on good
authority that she took preventive measures against conception and if pregnant induced
abortion by drugs and mechanical measures. At the end of eight years there was a divorce.
Just which one of the partners was at fault is impossible to state, but that there was more
than mere incompatibility is evident by the reticence of all concerned. Shortly afterward,
she married her present husband with whom she has lived for about nine years. He is a
steady drinker, but is a good workman, has never been discharged, and, apparently, his
drinking habits do not interfere with the main tenor of his life. He lives with the patient in
a small house of which they occupy two garret rooms, meagerly furnished, though
without evidence of dire poverty.
From her fifteenth year the patient has been subject to fainting spells. By all accounts
they come on usually after quarrels, disagreements or disappointments. They are not
accompanied by blanching, by clonic or tonic movements of any kind, they last for
uncertain periods ranging from five minutes to an hour or more, and consciousness does
not seem to be totally lost. In addition she has vomiting spells, these likewise occurring
when balked in her desires. She is subject to headaches, usually on one half of the head,
but frequently frontal. There is no