The Aetiology of Hysteria

The Aetiology of Hysteria (German: Zur Ätiologie der Hysterie) is a paper by Sigmund Freud about the child sexual abuse of children before the age of puberty, and its possible causation of mental illness in adults.

Following the technique of Josef Breuer, Freud expects the cause of hysteria must be traumatic experiences, memories of which continue to act on the mind.

The experience must fit the response, for example, hysterical vomiting could be justifiably attributed to seeing a disgusting dead body, but not to a frightening railway accident.

Patients are visibly distressed when they uncover the childhood sexual encounter, which is evidence that the remembered events are real.

Freud thinks that sex between children is typically initiated by a boy who was previously "seduced" by an adult woman.

[1] Freud received a cold reaction from his audience at the Vienna Society for Psychiatry and Neurology, where he presented his paper.