Hysteria: The Complex and Convoluted Persistence of an Idea

Modern medicine used the tools of science and technical progress to demystify the origins of disease. Disorders of the mind, however, proved more difficult, as interrogating the mind—or even the brain—was (and is) much more complex.

In this context, to understand the origins of hysterical nervous excitement, fits, ‘faints and vapours’, possession, trance proved quite difficult, and the idea still persisted that the ‘wandering uterus’, unfulfilled in its ordained roles, was the seat of ‘psychological’ disease in women. Whether the disease arose from issues with sexual or reproductive functions (literally and metaphorically), or the status of women in society, has been debated endlessly.

Social changes in the end of the 20th century saw these ideas falling into disrepute, and the word ‘hysteria’ itself was removed from psychiatry in 1980, as it had become uncomfortably pejorative. In this talk, Sanjeev Jain attempted to track these changes, and understand how attitudes and perceptions about the disease, transforms both individuals and the societies around them.

About the Psychiatrist

Sanjeev Jain teaches at the Department of Psychiatry at National Institute of Mental Health And Neurological Sciences (NIMHANS). There, in addition to being a clinician, he researches the genetic and genomic correlates of psychiatric and neurological diseases using both genetic analyses and model systems. He has an abiding interest in studying the symptoms and outcomes of psychoses as well as their social and biological correlates. He has also studied historical and social responses to mental health issues, including the development of psychiatric care, medical sciences, and health policy in South Asia, during the colonial and post-colonial periods.