The Hysterical Personality

Hysterical Personality Disorder

“…12.6 years; the sex ratio was 83% female, 17% male. These findings are comparable with other studies (Slavney& McHugh, 1974;Reed, 1975).…”

“…In keeping with the findings of Reed (1975) and of Slavney & McHugh (1974) This closely resembles the findingsof Bibb & Guze (1972), who reported a retrospective study of patients with Briquet's syndrome, where 80% of the sample was hospitalised for depression, yet the index cases were less likely to receive ECT than the controls. The present experimental study examined the process of diagnosis in a situation where the psychiatrist might be presumed to be on his best diagnostic behaviour.…”

Hysterical traits and variability of mood in normal men

“…Recently there has been increased interest in the reliability and validity of personality diagnoses in general (Presly & Walton, 1973;Fiske, 1974), and in the obsessional and hysterical types in particular (Reed, 1977;Lazare et al 1970;Slavney & McHugh, 1974. In a previous study of normal women (Slavney et al 1977), we demonstrated that increased variability of mood, a supposed attribute of hysterical personalities, was positively correlated with self-ratings on hysterical traits, and took this as support for the validity of the concept hysterical personality.…”

An epidemiological study of histrionic personality disorder

“…There are some features of these results that need further discussion. The sex ratio differs from studies focused on clinical populations (Slavney & McHugh, 1974;Reich, 1987). In fact, in some writings Histrionic Personality Disorder was considered to be strictly a woman's disorder (Chodoff, 1982), although there have been reports describing cases in the male, including Reich (1969) who described his prototypic case in the male.…”

“…Further validation of the disorder and illumination of its constitutional underpinnings is needed. The apparent preponderance of women in hospital studies (Slavney & McHugh, 1974;Reich, 1987) and the absence of clear genetics caused Chodoff & Lyons to wonder whether the diagnosis, hysterical personality disorder, was simply men describing troubled women and doing so in settings where men have much authority and the women are ill or otherwise at their most vulnerable.…”