Feminine Psychology: Hysteria

Feminine Psychology emphasizes the role of environmental and cultural factors in the development of neurosis. In her view, men and women were equal outside of the cultural limitations often placed on being female. Karen Horney, that biologically women and men were equal.

Male psychologists believed that women were inferior. The concept of hysteria emphasizes that males viewed women as weak, inferior, and susceptible to insanity. Hysteria is the concept of the “wandering uterus.” Male doctors believed that women who had paralysis in their arms or legs were the cause of the uterus disconnecting itself and moving around the body. Women were treated as inferior because they were susceptible to womb wandering.

However, that concept changed in a positive way for women psychologists like Karen Horney when “womb wandering” appeared in men who were in combat. To be less disgraceful, men who suffered from hysteria were said to be suffering from “shell shock.”

Horney also believed that Anatomy is not Destiny. Contrary to Sigmund Freud, the Oedipal Complex does not apply to most men and to no women. Penis envy, to her, was not really envying the penis in its literal sense, but envying men’s social status and role. She believes that there is something wrong with society and not women.
Misdiagnosis of women happens a lot in our society. Women today, even though we are supposedly equal, still get stereotyped. A woman is more likely to be diagnosed with depression than males. While this is a fact, there is another factor that is not taken into consideration. For women, it is okay to visit a therapist and seek help. Women talk and therapy is “the talking cure.” It is socially acceptable for women to express their emotions and feelings and seek support from others. For males on the other hand, they are supposed to not be emotional or expressive. They are manly, and don’t cry, and think emotions are women’s business. Males, even when depressed, do not seek help as often as females. Females have a greater chance of misdiagnosis because they express sadness, but not necessarily are always clinically depressed.