"
This perhaps rather fantastic description is not a presentation of
hysteria in the technical sense, but we may admit that it presents a state
which, if not the real physiological counterpart of the hysterical
convulsion, is yet distinctly analogous to the latter. The sexual orgasm
has this correspondence with the hysterical fit, that they both serve to
discharge the nervous centres and relieve emotional tension. It may even
happen, especially in the less severe forms of hysteria, that the sexual
orgasm takes place during the hysterical fit; this was found by Rosenthal,
of Vienna, to be always the case in the semiconscious paroxysms of a young
girl whose condition was easily cured;[286] no doubt such cases would be
more frequently found if they were sought for. In severe forms of
hysteria, however, it frequently happens, as so many observers have noted,
that normal sexual excitement has ceased to give satisfaction, has become
painful, perverted, paradoxical. Freud has enabled us to see how a shock
to the sexual emotions, injuring the emotional life at its source, can
scarcely fail sometimes to produce such a result. But the necessity for
nervous explosion still persists.[287] It may, indeed, persist, even in an
abnormally strong degree, in consequence of the inhibition of normal
activities generally. The convulsive fit is the only form of relief open
to the tension. "A lady whom I long attended," remarks Ashwell, "always
rejoiced when the fit was over, since it relieved her system generally,
and especially her brain, from painful irritation which had existed for
several previous days.
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