[Phenomenology of pseudohysterical behavioral and perceptual styles in melancholic patients]

Occasionally certain behavioural styles and symptoms can be seen in melancholics which are difficult to classify as hysterical or pseudohysterical. Phenomenological analysis is employed to qualify some of these phenomena as melancholic and thus as pseudohysterical. No statement is made as to whether and how often actual hysterical phenomena are to be found in melancholics. Our results raise the question whether hysterical symptoms, hysterical mechanisms and hysterical personality traits are diagnosed too often in melancholic patients in whom subtle phenomenological analysis would identify these phenomena as pseudohysterical.