Historical development of the body in mental illness: a critical approach to hysteria

As a discourse and practice, the concept of mental dissorder has a historical trajectory built on the concrete experiences of bodies. We present a theoretical and genealogical reflection of hysteria related to the social construction of the body in discourses ranging from classical philosophy to contemporary psychopathology. The aim is to generate possibilities for critical reading of texts that build bodies as mentally ill. We consider the clinical evolution of hysteria and mental disorder as embodied and constructed from technoscientific nodes of power-knowledge characteristic of psychopathology.