[Cultural relativity of hysteria as a nosographic entity. Hysteria and antisocial behavior]

In a review of the works of those authors who have dealt with this subject since the 50s, this study aims to consider the influence which certain prejudices and convictions, which are rooted in our culture, may have had on the concept of hysteria, above all with regard to the close correlation which has always been noted between this syndrome and the female sex. While, on the one hand, the analysis of sociocultural factors and of the different roles which have been established for the sexes, may help us to understand some of the peculiarities of this disease, on the other these same observations may induce us to question the existence of hysteria as a differentiated nosographical entity. In this way, for example, in Warner's opinion, a hysterical personality and an anti-social personality become two different phenomenal expressions of a single basic character disorder.