Hysterical Self-Mutilation of the Tongue

Abstract

Introduction Hysteria remains an awkward concept despite its long and vivid history. While excluded from the most recent formal nomenclature 25 the term finds daily use in modern psychiatry. But it means different things to different people. It may be a distinct, recognizable syndrome, chronic in nature, characterized by vague complaints and multiple hospitalizations 24 or a type of personality structure typified by intense feelings of inadequacy, a tendency to repress aggressive feelings, and a powerful capacity for dramatization. 22 Hysteria may be but one manifestation of the phenomenon called conversion 26 or the converse may be true. 24 It was through the study and treatment of this disorder that Freud 7 discovered the principles and developed the practice of psychoanalysis. In dynamic psychiatry it has long been convenient to attempt understanding of an illness by seeing the symptoms as evidence of inadequate resolution with