A Metaphor for Going Backwards: Existential Hysteria

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of existential hysteria to describe a clinical configuration marked by a fixation on an idealized past in the aftermath of psychic trauma. Through a series of clinical vignettes, we explore how certain patients—though potentially classifiable under categories such as complicated grief, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or identity disturbance—exhibit a unique subjective position in which symbolic work is impeded by a nostalgic clinging to what has been lost. Their psychic life is structured around a refusal or inability to mourn, accompanied by a silent demand that “something must be fixed” before life may resume. We articulate this structure using Freudian and Lacanian frameworks. For Freud, hysteria is grounded in the persistence of unelaborated reminiscences, while Lacan’s discourse of the hysteric entails a demand directed to the other that obscures the subject’s desire. We interpret existential hysteria as a form of subjective arrest in which trauma is neither fully repressed nor symbolized but instead transformed into a frozen ideal. The symptom thus functions both as a memorial and as a protest. This theoretical proposition is not intended to displace existing diagnostic frameworks, but to name and explore a dimension of psychic suffering that cuts across them. This structural fixation renders the subject incapable of re-engaging with their own temporality. We propose that identifying this configuration can offer clinicians a valuable lens for understanding patients who remain affectively and narratively bound to the past in the wake of trauma.