Almost the same assertions that we have advanced in reference to the continuous hysterical symptoms we may also repeat concerning hysterical crises. As is known we have Charcot's schematic description of the "major" hysterical attack which when complete shows four phases: (1) The epileptoid, (2) the grand movements, (3) the emotional - attitudes passionnelles (hallucinatory phase), and (4) the delirious. By shortening or prolonging the attack and by isolating the individual phases Charcot caused a succession of all those forms of the hysterical attack which are really observed more frequently than the complete grande attaque.
Our attempted explanation refers to the third phase, that is the attitudes passionnelles. Wherever it is prominent it contains the hallucinatory reproduction of a memory which was significant for the hysterical onset. It is the memory of a grand trauma, the so called [Greek] of traumatic hysteria or of a series of connected partial traumas found at the basis of the common hysteria. Finally the attack may bring back that occurrence which on account of its meeting with a moment of special predisposition was raised to a trauma.
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