hysteria

Historical label Jiang glosses as depression, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, and relational symptoms.

A historical diagnosis for women said to be emotionally uncontrolled; Jiang contrasts an early trauma reading with a later attention-seeking explanation.

A period term for women described as unable to control emotions or form healthy relationships; Jiang notes it is not a word used now.

Jiang says early Freud found that many young women's depression, anxiety, and relational symptoms traced to childhood sexual abuse, often by fathers or trusted adults.

Jiang says later Freud reframed female hysteria as attention-seeking and control, turning psychology into gaslighting rather than patient advocacy.

Freud's early clinical breakthrough, in Jiang's telling, was to win the trust of women labeled hysterical and hear them say their symptoms came from childhood sexual abuse.

Jiang says Freud initially concluded that women labeled hysterical were telling the truth because many patients with similar symptoms independently reported childhood sexual abuse.

The early Freud, as Jiang presents him, argued that hysteria symptoms were not invented in the mind but psychological symbols of physical trauma experienced by patients.

Jiang argues that the later Freud explains hysteria as female attention-seeking and casts women as obstacles to civilization because men supposedly bear the higher work of civilization.

Freud's early patients are described as traumatized women whose symptoms followed abuse, and early Freud initially believed and advocated for them.

Early Freud is presented as arguing that hysteria was rooted in real childhood sexual trauma, often involving respected families and trusted relatives.