In hysteria, Janet says, the field of consciousness is narrowed, and the patient lives through subconscious experiences, which she forgets when she again "comes to". She journeys back into the past, back a few years individually, back centuries or æons racially, and becomes a savage child again.
Normally, when anything goes wrong, or we suffer from excessive emotion, we give vent to our feelings by tears, abuse, anger, or impulsive action; in some way we "hit back", and relieve ourselves of the feeling of oppression. Then we forget, which heals the sore, and closes the experience.
If, at the moment, we bottle up our emotions, they obtrude later at inconvenient times until we "get them off our mind" by confiding in some one, when we get peace of mind. Open confession is good for the soul, and it is better to "cry your eyes out" than to "eat your heart out".
There are some experiences, however, to which we cannot react by anger or confidence, and so we imprison our emotions, and try to obtain peace of mind by forgetting the irritation.
Freud thinks perverted sex ideas are thus repressed, and cause hysteria by coming into conflict with the normal sex life. If these old sores can be laid bare by psycho-analysis, and the mental abscess drained by confession and contrition, cure follows.
The biologists consider hysteria as an adult childishness, a primitive mode of dodging difficulties. Victims cannot live up to the complicated emotional standard of modern life, and so act on a standard which to us seems natural only in children and uncivilized races.
Savill gives the following differences between neurasthenia and hysteria:
| NEURASTHENIA | HYSTERIA | |
| Sex | Both sexes equally. | 97 per cent females. |
| Age | Any age. | First attack before page of 25. |
| Mental peculiarities | Intellectual weakness; bad memory and attention. | Deficient will power, Want of control over emotions. |
| Causes | Overwork; dyspepsia; accident; nervous shock. | Emotional upset or shock. |
| Course | Fairly even. | Paroxysms. Vary from hour to hour. |
| Mental Symptoms | Mental exhaustion;unable to study; restless; sad; irritable; not equal to amusement. May be suicidal. | Emotional; wayward; no self-analysis, living by rule or reading medical books; Fond of gaiety; sad and joyous by turns. Never suicidal. |
| General Symptoms | Occasional giddiness; fainting rare; convulsions; headache; backache; sleeplessness; no loss of feeling. | Flushing; convulsions and fainting common; no symptoms between attacks; local anæsthesia or hyperæsthesia. |
| Termination | Lasts weeks or months. CURABLE. | Lasts lifetime in spasms. TEMPORARILY CURABLE. |
Hysteria is a disease of youth, usually ceasing at the climacteric. Social, financial and domestic worries