[Pathomorphosis of hysterical neurosis]

The authors have studied age, microsocial, cultural, and psychopathological pathomorphosis in two groups of females (154 cases in total) with hysterical neurosis who were admitted to hospital in the early 1950s and early 1980s. The investigation has demonstrated that both the ratio of the main psychopathological disturbances in the structure of hysterical neurosis and their nature and severity have undergone definite changes. Vivid motor disorders rather prevalent in the 1950s have been shifted to the background by vegeto-somatic disturbances. At the same time sensory stigmas, while remaining fairly typical and frequent in the clinical course of hysterical neurosis, are becoming to be distinguished by increasingly unremarkable and elementary features, resembling the sensations reported by patients with somatic diseases.