Prof. Aschaffenburg. The latest theory of hysteria. Die neueren Theorien der Hysterie. Deutsche medicine. Wochenschr, 31 Oct. 1907

Report to the International Congress of Psychiatrists in Amsterdam in September 1907.

Until now, Aschaffenburg says, all psychiatrists, old and new, have not only failed to reach a final conclusion about the causes of hysteria, but even to characterize this disease with one specific picture, due to the variety of its symptoms, is difficult. The attempts of modern times, made by Freud and his followers, are reduced, in the opinion of the author, to the same narrow theory, which does not have sufficient substantiation, which existed in antiquity. It used to be thought that the causes of hysteria lay in the genital apparatus of the patient, whence the word "hysteria" comes from. Now Freud and his students say that the main cause of hysteria lies in the patient's sexual life, and therefore in everything connected with it.