Ep 60: Hysteria, Histrionic, & the Demonization of Women

🎬In this episode of the Personality Couch Podcast, we (licensed clinical psychologists Doc Bok and Doc Fish) discuss the horrible and inhumane history of hysteria in medicine by investigating how Dr. Jean Martin Charcot used the Salpetriere Hospital in France as a “Museum of Living Pathology” to showcase his hypnotic and showman skills over hysterical women. We look at Freud’s contribution to hysteria and the oppressive, patriarchal society of the 1880s that led to these unexplained symptoms in women. We continue the discussion by walking through the DSM’s hysteria to histrionic personality evolution before sharing our own thoughts and opinions about this condition’s stigmatized name and the maltreatment of women in medicine throughout history.

⚠️Note: this podcast does not constitute a professional relationship. If you’re in need of professional help, please seek out appropriate resources in your area. ⚠️

Additional Podcast References

• American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5-TR (5th edition, text revision.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787
• Lingiardi, V., & McWilliams, N. (Eds.). (2017). Psychodynamic diagnostic manual: PDM-2 (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.