What Are the Most Effective Treatments for Hysteria in Women?

Around the 18th century, physicians began associating hysteria with brain activity instead of just the uterus, signaling an important change: this meant hysteria was no longer limited to female sufferers alone.

1. Hypnosis

Hypnosis for hysteria has a rich and long-standing tradition. Initially, physicians held that women's wombs wandered freely throughout their bodies, affecting other organs and leading to various health problems. This practice became commonplace in ancient Egypt and Greece where physicians would coax it back into place with aromatic potions or oral administration of nauseating draughts.

Male doctors used this theory as a means of explaining female patients' irrational behavior and physical ailments as the result of something external, like their roaming womb or male spirits influencing them. It remained prevalent into the 19th century, when those exhibiting hysterical symptoms would often be sent off to mental hospitals for evaluation.

At the close of the 19th century, physicians like Jean Martin Charcot were pioneering scientific methods for the investigation of mental illnesses and advocating to have "hysteria" removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Unfortunately, many women seeking treatment today still find their symptoms discounted by doctors who assume that their symptoms are simply psychological reactions to menstruation or hormonal fluctuations Khameera Gaozaban Jadwar Ood Saleeb.

2. Hysterectomies

For centuries, physicians diagnosed hysteria based on symptoms like headache, forgetfulness, irritability, insomnia, heavy periods and the desire for clitoral stimulation. According to Maines, doctors believed women's uteri could travel throughout their bodies placing pressure on other organs and leading to symptoms listed above; coupled with men's historical and continuing dominance in medicine led them to reach damaging conclusions regarding their health that still have long-term repercussions.

Doctors would often try to force women with "roaming uteri" back into their proper places by subjecting them to various smells in an effort to induce sneezing and shift the offending organ back into its proper positions through exposure to these aromas, an approach derived from past misperceptions that have greatly shaped contemporary understandings and treatments of women's mental illnesses. Today, knowledge has changed and laparoscopic surgery now commonly performed hysterectomies which result in less blood loss and shorter hospital stays while abdominal surgery was once standard practiced - although these methods also induce surgical menopause resulting in hot flashes and absence of the ovaries which caused pain for many years afterward.

3. Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy is a form of treatment in which a person enters into a state of trance that allows the clinician to control his or her mind through suggestion and imagination, creating an alternate reality for the individual being treated. Achieve control over actions and behaviors to become more efficient at solving problems

Early cultures such as Egypt and Greece believed that women's wombs wandered throughout their bodies, leading to various health complications. Physicians prescribed solutions such as regular heterosexual sex, marriage and pregnancy as well as applying pleasant-smelling oils directly onto female genital areas as a way of trying to coax wandering uteri back into its proper places.

Freud theorized that hysterical symptoms were an outward expression of unconscious psychological material that was diverted onto an unhealthy pathway, manifesting as somatic symptoms. He proposed that under hypnosis a strangulated affect can be freed or "purged", enabling its discharge back into consciousness and alleviating symptoms altogether.

4. Antidepressants

For centuries, physicians viewed female hysteria as an explanation for anything men found strange or uncomfortable about a woman's body or mind - this gendered stereotype greatly affected women and continues to affect them today.

Female Hysteria was first mentioned in ancient Egyptian medical texts and referenced by Hippocrates and Greek philosopher Plato in their writing. These two men believed that women's wombs could move freely throughout their bodies causing symptoms as varied as headaches and stomachaches as well as chest pain, backaches and even mental distress.

Physicians would treat this condition by temporarily isolating women from their homes and locking them away in a dark, windowless room for weeks or months at a time in an environment known as "rest cure," during which soft foods were provided as diet options and physical activity was strictly limited Lahore Hakeem.

Physicians eventually abandoned the theory of wandering uteri and classified many of its symptoms as anxiety neuroses due to Freud's research; his studies revealed that most instances of hysteria were actually anxiety states rather than genuine emotional disturbances.

5. Sex

Physicians of the 1800s and early 1900s utilized clitoral stimulation as a treatment for female hysteria, commonly referred to at that time as sexualite. Their belief was that physical and mental wellbeing were inextricably connected: A woman's mind would affect reproductive organs as vice versa.

Hippocrates had described women's symptoms in his Epidemicon: "Passio Hysterica, but Many Accidents Accompany It". Galen (2nd Century AD) also commented on this notion by writing, "Hysteria arises from the Uterus; its sole function being reproduction. Thus it produces symptoms such as hunger, rage, anxiety attacks, stupor writing cramps trembling tumescence and desire for clitoral stimulation"

According to historian Rachel Maines, physicians gave pelvic massages and electric vibrators stimulations for hysterical patients to encourage sexual activity (ideally marriage and sexual intercourse), though women unable to reach orgasm through this route often went back to midwives for manual stimulation of their genitalia.