num_pages: 235
description: At the beginning of the twentieth century hysteria was a medical or psychiatric diagnosis applied primarily to women. In fact the term itself comes from the Greek meaning wandering womb. We have since learned however that this diagnosis evolved from certain assumptions about womens social roles and mental characteristics and is no longer in use.The modern equivalent of hysteria however may be borderline personality disorder defined as a pervasive pattern of instability of self-image interpersonal relationships and mood beginning in early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. This diagnosis is applied to women so much more often than to men that feminists have begun to raise important questions about the social cultural and even the medical assumptions underlying this illness. Women are said to be unstable when they may be trying to reconcile often contradictory and conflicting social expectations.In Women and Borderline Personality Disorder  Janet Wirth-Cauchon presents a feminist cultural analysis of the notions of unstable selfhood found in case narratives of women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. This exploration of contemporary post-Freudian psychoanalytic notions of the self as they apply to womens identity conflicts is an important contribution to the literature on social constructions of mental illness in women and feminist critiques of psychiatry in general.
language: English
title: Women and Borderline Personality Disorder: Symptoms and Stories
publisher: Rutgers University Press