Mass family hysteria: a report from India.

The case of a 31-member family displaying mass hysteria in up to 10 members at one time is reported. The mass hysteria emerged in the context of the strong religious and cultural beliefs held by this closely knit family. The varied presentations included somatoform disorder, recurrent vomiting, conversion, dissociative and possession attacks. Two members had bipolar affective disorder that was recognized by the family as a 'medical' illness in contrast to other problems attributed to religiosity. The rarity of mass hysteria in a family and issues related to its medical and social management are highlighted.

Genetic and learning factors as major substrata for age-related psychopathological symptoms: concerning the question of a psychology of age.

The various episodes of life significant for outbursts of different psychic disorders may give some facilitations of a better understanding of the underlying basic processes. Two of them are considered in several appearances: genetic predisposition and conditioning processes. A psychology of age may be interpreted in a stronger sense as a collision of these two conditions. Surprisingly, the age at onset of some psychic disorders is relatively early in life. This means that we should make every effort to comprehend vulnerability in terms of biological as well as psychological compounds earlier; it could carry on to surrender the dichotomy of biological and psychological factors and to combine different standpoints in a general view which inaugurates therapeutic and prophylactic consequences, too.

[Neurologic and mental disorders in patients with migraine and in their children]. / Nervno-psikhicheskie rasstroistva u bol'nykh migren'iu i ikh detei.

To specify indications for differentiated therapy, a study was made of the characteristic features of the psychopathological picture of the interictal period of migraine in 50 women aged 28 to 60 years suffering from different forms of migrainous attacks. Besides, the neuropsychic disorders were also examined in those patients' children. The first group was made up of migraine patients in whom paroxysmal psychic disorders resembling convulsion-free epileptic attacks ranked first in the clinical structure of the interictal period. In the second group patients, of paramount importance was the hysterical symptomatology. The third group patients suffered from somatized depressions. The differentiated therapy of psychic disorders of the interictal period favoured the deceleration of migrainous attacks in all the three groups patients.

[Familial incidence of affective diseases in patients with anorexia nervosa]. / Familiäre Belastungen mit affektiven Erkrankungen von Patienten mit Anorexia nervosa.

Analysis of family history information about first-, second- and third-degree relatives of 45 anorectic patients and 38 control subjects with different types of neurosis showed significantly more depression and eating disorders in the families of the anorectic group. Our data revealed the same prevalence of psychiatric disorders in general for both groups; the alcoholism rate was higher in the anorectic group without a statistic significance. These findings might provide further evidence of a possible genetic relationship between anorexia nervosa and affective illness.

[Comparative clinico-genealogical analysis of slowly progressive schizophrenia and hysterical-type psychopathy]. / Sravnitel'nyi kliniko-genealogicheskii analiz maloprogredientnoi shizofrenii i psikhopatii istericheskogo tipa.

A genetic correlational analysis of two variants of slowly progressive schizophrenia (SPS) (hysterical schizophrenia--70 families, paranoid schizophrenia--40 families) and hysterical psychopathy (30 families) has demonstrated that there is a definite genetic heterogeneity between nosologically heterogeneous hysterical manifestations in SPS and constitutional psychopathy which reflects the influence of the general constitutional "axis" in systems of genetic determination of these forms. At the same time no significant genetic correlations (according to hysterical predisposition) have been found between the above forms and the paranoid variant of SPS. The results corroborate the hypothesis about a multiaxial structure of hereditary predisposition in SPS.

Family hysteria in a Kenyan setting.

A case study of hysterical fits affecting five children in the same family in rural Kenya is presented. The only girl in the study was the last to succumb, probably reflecting her modeling upon her mother. The psychopathology of the family is discussed. Conjoint family therapy led to rapid and dramatic recovery.

The validity of broadly defined hysteria and DSM-III conversion disorder: outcome, family history, and mortality.

Patients who fail to meet criteria for Briquet's syndrome (or somatization disorder) despite a chart diagnosis of hysteria have been shown previously to resemble patients with primary depression in terms of familial psychopathology. The same patients are shown here to have excess mortality which also resembles that seen in patients with primary depression. The isolation of patients meeting DSM-III criteria for conversion disorder yielded very similar results. Outcome and mortality data clearly separated conversion disorder from Briquet's syndrome patients; family history data suggested substantial diagnostic heterogeneity. Until the validity of this diagnosis is established, the label "conversion disorder" is recommended as a descriptive alternative to the label "undiagnosed."

[Family background characteristics in slowly-progressive schizophrenia]. / K kharakteristike semeinogo fona pri malo progredientnoi shizofrenii.

The authors studied the family history of 103 patients with slowly progressive schizophrenia (1218 relatives) characterized by the predominance of obsessions and hysterical disturbances. The study disclosed the accumulation of both various forms of schizophrenia and personality anomalies of psychoasthenic and hysterical types among the relatives of the patients. The clinical specific features of "linear" symptomatology in the families studied were considered. The role of one or another type of constitutional predisposition in the development of phenotypical variants of the disease is shown.

Neuroses and ABO blood types.

Determination of ABO blood types was carried out in 72 (35 female and 37 male) patients with obsessive-compulsive neurosis, 73 (35 female and 38 male) patients with phobic neurosis, 75 (54 female and 21 male) patients with hysteria and a random sample of 600 individuals (268 female and 332 male) drawn from the general population. Results provide evidence of: (1) a positive association between obsessive-compulsive neurosis and blood type A and a corresponding negative association between the former and blood type O; (2) a positive association between phobic neurosis and blood type O and a corresponding negative association between the former and blood type A, and (3) a positive association between hysteria and blood type A and a corresponding negative association between the former and blood type O. Moreover, sex does not appear to modify the ABO blood type distribution in our patients with obsessive-compulsive neurosis, phobic neurosis or hysteria. These findings might be considered as supporting the view that hereditary factors in the neurotic individual may influence the clinical form of his neurosis.

A blind family history study of Briquet's syndrome. Further validation of the diagnosis.

We undertook a blind family history study of Briquet's syndrome to complement earlier follow-up work by Perley and Guze. The same criteria were used in a chart review to select 49 Briquet's syndrome cases. One control group consisted of consecutive "non-Briquet hysteria" admissions and another of matched primary unipolar depressed cases. First-degree relatives of the Briquet's syndrome probands had significantly less affective disorder and more "complicated medical history" then either control group. The "non-Briquet hysteria" group contained more faily histories with instances of schizophrenia than either the Briquet's syndrome or effective disorder groups. These results provide additional validation of the Briquet's syndrome diagnosis.

Neuroticism and ABO blood types.

In an attempt to interpret previous findings of a higher incidence of blood phenotype A and a lower incidence of blood phenotype O in patients with either obsessive-compulsive neurosis or hysteria, it was hypothesized that phenotype O might be associated with personality traits that render the individual less prone to developing neurotic symptoms. To test the validity of this hypothesis Form A of the Eysenck Personality Inventory was administered to 600 normal individuals and their ABO phenotype was determined. Our results failed to support the above hypothesis, because the blood phenotype of the participants did not differentiate them with respect to their mean neuroticism score. The possibility of an association between ABO blood phenotypes and other, more specific, personality traits, such as hysteroid or obsessional is presently under investigation.

Hysteria: a case note study.

In a matched retrospective study, 31 patients with hysterical neurosis were compared with 31 with depressive neurosis. There were no significant differences between the groups for siblings' position, medical work, brain disease, poor marriage, frigidity, or family history of psychiatric disorder. Significantly more of the hysterics had a preceding head injury and 29% had a past history of hysteria. By the time of the study 48% had been treated for depression.

Mathematical models for describing the clustering of sociopathy and hysteria in families: a comment on the recent paper by Cloninger et al.

The fitting of the multifactorial model of disease transmission to the familial clustering of hysteria and sociopathy by Cloninger et al (I) involved an approximation. This note reports the results of fitting the bivariate Normal model exactly and also two other distributions.

[Hysteria, hypnosis and psychopathology. Unknowns and perspectives]. / Hysterie, Hypnose, Psychopathologie. Unbekannte und Perspektiven

The author, drawing on his wide experience, discusses a number of theoretical questions associated with the subject of practical work. He presents several concepts in connection with the description of a particular case and also discusses various historically important points of view made known through publication in the literature.