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Modern hysteria

Back in Stay Free! #21, I interviewed Edward Shorter about his history of psychosomatic illness, which discusses how psychosomatic symptoms are always evolving with the times. Once-common problems such as paralysis and temporary blindness, for example, have given way to headaches, backaches, and chronic fatigue.

What I didn't realize at the time is that even today doctors encounter patients who are wheelchair-bound or otherwise paralyzed, without any identifiable physical cause. In this transcript of the Australian radio program All in the Mind, Allan House discusses these modern cases of "hysteria" and how to treat them.

(Via Mindhacks)