Diagnosis revisited (and revisited): the case of hysteria and the hysterical personality.

A discussion of "The Hysterical Personality Disorder," by Gordon Baumbacher, M.D., and Fariborz Amini, M.D. The effort of Baumbacher and Amini at clarification of the diagnostic meaning of the group they designate hysterical personality disorder is discussed within the context of all the difficult and problematic conceptual and definitional dilemmas that exist within psychiatric and psychoanalytic nomenclature. The following discussion presents the issues of psychologic-psychodynamic as opposed to medical-somatic nosology in general and the special problems inherent within the realm of hysteria. Among the issues considered are the oral hysteric of Marmor (1953), the "hysteroid" of Easser and Lesser(1965), and the "so-called good hysteric" of Zetzel (1968), and the additional issues that inhere in the distinctions among the varieties of deurotic (nonpsychotic) disorders: the symptom neuroses, the character neuroses, and the impulse neuroses (or character disorders). The extent of philosophic or aesthetic preference in current denominational designations is referred to.