Hysteria and borderline - Some empirical approaches to the "bird of paradise"

The intention of the study is the empirical differentiation between "mature " and "immature" (borderline-) hysterics. 366 inpatients of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine of the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mann heim (university of Heidelberg) were diagnosed with regard to the existence of hysterical personality traits. 146 patients shared the criteria of the DOPSY-system for hysteria. This group was divided by assistance of the Bord erline-Syndrome-Index (BSI) into a subgroup of n=79 "mature" and a subgroup of n=67 "immature" Borderline hysterics. The distribution was validated by the Freiburger Personality inventure (FPI). Both groups are similar referr ing to age, gender and schooleducation. On the level of symptomatology we f ound the same feature of diagnoses in the area F40-45 in the ICD-10. Two th ird of the patients with hysterical personality traits have got an addition al classification of personality disorder, but only 48% in the group of mat ure hysterics and 37% in the group of immature hysterics were classified by experienced psychoanalysists as histrionic personality disorder (F60.4, IC D-10). With respect to risk factors in the life history we found that matur e hysterics much more often were characterized by a loss of father in the f irst three years and the position of the eldest (and sometimes only) child. The results pointed to distinct developmental lines, which suggest, that t he two hysterical groups can be differentiated by the style of coping and d efense.