Hysteria and litigation: coping with the real of trauma.

The topic of my discussion today is one which may not impinge very much on the practice of analysts, but about which, nevertheless, I think analysis has something to say. I am going to talk about those patients, ubiquitous in psychiatric practice, who suffer from "post-traumatic stress disorder" as a result of accidents and who subsequently seek financial redress through personal injury claims. I think that these patients are the "new hysterics" of our time, perhaps replacing Anna O. and Dora and the other hysterics to whom we owe so much.…