The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, vol 10 | Page 4

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 regular period of occurrence of these headaches except that there is also some relation to quarrels, etc. On several occasions the patient has lost her voice for short periods ranging from a few minutes to several hours following particularly stormy domestic scenes.
On July 29 of this year she was suddenly paralyzed. That is to say, she was unable to move the right arm, the right leg, the right side of the face, and she lost the power of speech entirely; there was complete aphonia. This "stroke" was not accompanied by unconsciousness, but was preceded by severe headache and much nausea. During the three weeks that followed she remained in bed, recovering only the function of the arm. Her husband fed her by forcing open her mouth with a spoon. She did not lose