Hysteria

This state is the result of a desire to attract attention or avoid responsibility. It may have any of a wide range of symptoms, the most usual being screaming or weeping, but anything from headache to paralysis, fainting to convulsions. Although commonly afflicting young woman, hysteria may affect people of any age or sex. It may be a response to a situation which has become unbearable, the manifestation of repressed childhood experience, the self-punishment inflicted from feelings of guilt. The difficulties of the hysteric are projected onto the outside world, or extroverted, leading him or her to seek assistance from others. According to Freud, the hysteria associated with sexual problems (the original and most common use of the term "hysteria") is considered equivalent to coitus.