Hysterical psychosis and hypnotizability

• DOI: 10.1176/ajp.136.6.777
• Publication Date: 2014-12-17T19:01:27Z
• Authors: David Spiegel; Regina M. Fink
• Keywords: Hysteria; Decompensation

The very existence of hysterical psychosis as a diagnostic entity has been questioned part the general difficulty in defining both hysteria and psychosis. However, several recent investigations have documented syndrome that usually involves brief intense periods psychotic behavior, generally with graphic decompensation, severe environmental stress, rapid recompensation, individuals other features. authors assert such does exist clinical differential diagnosis can be facilitated by using standardized measure hypnotic trance capacity. They hypothesize patients are highly hypnotizable, while those who schizophrenic low hypnotizability. review literature present two case examples.