Mass hysteria: two syndromes?

Abstract

SynopsisOn the basis of a literature review it is concluded that mass hysteria can be divided into two syndromes. One form, to be called ‘mass anxiety hysteria’, consists of episodes of acute anxiety, occurring mainly in schoolchildren. Prior tension is absent and the rapid spread is by visual contact. Treatment consists of separating the participants and the prognosis is good. The second form, to be called ‘mass motor hysteria’, consists of abnormalities in motor behaviour. It occurs in any age group and prior tension is present. Initial cases can be identified and the spread is gradual. Treatment should be directed towards the underlying stressors but the outbreak may be prolonged. In mass anxiety hysteria the abnormality is confined to group interactions; in mass motor hysteria abnormal personalities and environments are implicated.

Epidemic Hysteria: A Review of the Published Literature

“…It has been described in humans as "very similar to a stampede in the animal world" (3, p. 301). It has also been called a culture-bound stress reaction (4), in which two separate mechanisms are at work: an anxiety variant, in which abdominal pain, headache, dizziness, fainting, nausea, and hyperventilation are the most common symptoms, and the motor variant, with common symptoms of hysterical dancing, convulsions, laughing, and pseudoseizures (5,6). Although it has been proposed that in modern Western society the "more primitive" motor variant essentially has been replaced in form by the anxiety variant (7), examples of this motor variant continue to be reported (8).…”

Epidemic Hysteria: School Outbreaks 1973–1993

“…But in one of his papers, Small and Nicholi [13] think that the forthcoming expected loss of the school principal might have been abreacted in the outbreak. In some outbreaks, it looks like children's duplication of a larger social problem 1 We are not referring here to Wesseley's [59] distinction between two syndromes of epidemic hysteria differentiated on the basis of symptomatic patterns, the mass motor type and the anxiety hysteria type. We have seen in the analysis of the symptom profile of the outbreaks that this distinction is borne out as two poles of the symptomatic configuration.…”

Communicability of symptoms in psychiatry

“…Gruenberg (1957) hypothesised that social integration may play a role in developing social shared psychopathology. Wessely (1987) suggested that mass hysteria can be sub-divided into two varieties: mass anxiety hysteria and mass motor hysteria. Mass anxiety hysteria consists of episodes of acute anxiety seen generally in schoolchildren.…”

“…On the contrary, mass motor hysteria shows abnormalities in motor systems which can be seen across all ages. Wessely (1987) points out that such type of motor hysteria may have a gradual spread. Whereas abnormality is confined to group interaction in mass anxiety hysteria, in mass motor hysteria abnormal personalities and environments are implicated.…”