Childhood Hysteria
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1997 Jan / Feb VOL VI NO 1.
Dr S Praveen Kumar
'Ign / Staph / Nat-m / Mosch
Editor's Note:
This article has been included in this issue as it gives a general idea of development of this condition. Depression and Hysteria are 2 sides of a coin, so with the same operational factors, one person could develop hysteria, and the other depression.
' A child is the father of the man, this adage caution us that childhood experiences can make or break the constitution. Parents play the maximum role here.
During childhood, the mind is like a blotting paper taking every impression without prejudice. Hence there are several factors which influence one's mental break up and their behaviour some of which can't be controlled should be borne in mind and properly tackled.
Unfavourable factors: Demanding, overprotective, negligent and over - indulgent parents.
Physical factors: Over - immunization, over - drugging, pesticides, fertilizers and different chemicals.
Incidence of Hysteria and neurosis is equally high in children as in adults, though the pattern and manifestations may be different. A classical anxiety reaction with all its manifestations like anxiety attacks; phobic reaction, obsessive-compulsive reaction, Hysteria and Neurotic depression are seen in children.
History of Medicine: We find evidence that this particular phenomenon occurs more among women: hence the name 'Hysteria' one with the hysterus or uterus. Emotional crisis, shocks, unrequited emotions are the root of the phenomenon and women, as we know, are more emotional.
Heredity and constitutional factors play an important role in the predisposition to hysteria. But for the manifestations, environmental factors play a key role.
Symptoms are a result of a conflict between the superego (conscience) and some wish not palatable to super ego, which the latter suppresses. The repression is only partially successful. The wish, although repressed into unconscious, succeeds in obtaining a disquiet expression by conversion into a symptom very often symbolic in nature. This form of psychopathology is very often superficial and in the environmental, rather than being intra - psychic.
IMITATION, which plays a significant part in the life of every child, is a leading factor in hysteria. We, as homoeopaths, are aware that all true diseases are miasmatic in nature. All the miasmatic tendencies remain dormant like a keg of dynamite, hence sans overt manifestations. All miasmatic tendencies can be manifested only when the causa - occasionalis is in operation. At base for this hysterical phenomenon there is a sense of insecurity borne out of fear and anxiety. All kinds of fear and anxieties are psoric in nature.
The causa - occasionalis is the environmental factors which include the home, the immediate relatives and close friends, the school and social environment. Whenever there is difficulty in coping with the situations in any of these places, the response of flight or fight comes into operation. More often it is the flight response which gives rise to this phenomenon. However, regrets over the fight response could also bring out the same changes.
Childhood hysteria could also be classified as conversion and dissociative reaction. The condition may be monosymptomatic and related to any system. The commonly found symptoms are fits, headaches, giddiness, anorexia, vomiting, pain in the abdomen, globus hystericus or dysphagia, frequency of micturation, somnambulism and disturbance of vision. The choice of symptoms is influenced by previous experience of illness, imitation or identification with a person with similar illness, and the inner conflict, which is symbolically expressed in organ languages. The treatment of hysteria and all other neuroses is on child guidance and psychotherapeutic lines.
It clearly means that neither miasmatic tendencies alone nor the environmental factors alone can in any way cause any disorder in general and Hysteria in particular. So it is the sumtotal of the reaction of the miasmatic tendencies to the environment make or mar the health of the person, be it hysteria or any disorder.
Hahnemann terms (vide aph no: 210-2330) these hysterical diseases as 'Pseudo-Psychiatric disorder.'
So, the aim of the treatment is to prescribe for the acute manifestations and eradicate further manifestations by a deep acting miasmatic remedy. Even hypnotic session, change of environment, or a pilgrimage to a famous shrine may bring about miraculous cure in some individual cases.
All of us aware of the great characteristic symptom, 'Colic' of Colocynth brought about by a trivial factor like 'quarrel'. Colocynth is not widely known as a hysterical remedy yet in this instance relieves colic where it is purely functional i.e. psoric according to Roberts.
Kent gives a perfect example of green diarrhoea in a child who is emotionally deprived of the mother's warmth under Mag carb, and terms them as clandestine babies. The emotional crisis of the mother is manifested through the child. Drawing the analogy of simili, Magnesia group of remedies can be prescribed for children who are deprived of mother's milk.
