Hysterie

This classical fundamental work reflects the newest developments in the media and society, such as the frenetic excitement among adolescents in the presence of the group “Tokio Hotel” or the growing phenomenon of sensation mongering.“Hysterical” is now used colloquially to mean fake, theatrical, histrionic, exaggerated. In psychiatry and psychology, on the other hand, the term was long connected with a number of physical and mental symptoms and disorders that arose in the 19th and declined in the 20th century. Freud’s definition of hysteria is now considered obsolete. Stavros Mentzos provides a number of impressive examples of how the modus of hysteria remains relevant today through the exhibition of unconscious acting-out. This helps us to understand not only psychopathological and psychosomatic dynamics, but human behaviour and interaction in general.