New York Wonderland

Brief Reactive Psychosis 1868

Historical Document

This document references to different case studies  in the past 2 centuries of people that suffered from Brief Reactive Psychosis. This form of psychosis was originally called Hysterical Psychosis, which according to text, occurs after someone has experience some form of traumatic event in their life. One of the cases that it references to is a case study that was published in 1868 about a woman named Van der Hart. Before experiencing symptoms of Psychosis, this woman suffered from repeated abuse, rape, drowning, and her finance committing suicide. After going through all this, she began to experience the following symptoms: periods of continuous talking, some amnesia, hallucinations of reenactments of the traumatic event, delusions, seizures, depression, and suicidal urges. What helped her to be cured was going through hypnotic therapy.