Teenage Girls Diagnosed with Mass Hysteria

As the story continues to unfold, more and more students in LeRoy, New York are coming forward suffering symptoms similar to Tourette's.  The students, mostly female, have been plagued with ticks and outbursts for months now without any sign of what could be causing it.  Although some people like HLN's Dr. Drew Pinsky and Erin Brockovich have been pushing for further testing for environmental factors, a doctor who has been treating some of the students has announced a diagnosis of mass hysteria.  So what exactly is mass hysteria?  I went to Child and Family Services' Counseling Center Director, Mark Abbenante to learn more.

Mass hysteria is a psychogenic illness created by large amounts of anxiety or stress which Freud called a conversion disorder.  Basically, if we are being stressed out by work, kids, or a hectic schedule, it starts to take a toll on our body.  Have you ever had a long day where you come home with sore shoulders or a headache?  That can be the stress showing up physically.  Sure, there are ways to treat the symptoms like pain relievers or a massage, but without treating the cause of the pain they will just come back again.  To really stop the symptoms you need to find the cause.

Mass hysteria has usually occured where people are closely associated, typically with adolescent girls in schools.  Those afflicted by it will show similar symptoms, such as fainting, ticks, or difficulty breathing.  In an outbreak in Portugal back in 2006, as many as 300 students across 14 different schools presented symptoms of a fictional virus shown on the television show Strawberries with Sugar.  After no cause could be identified, the incident was diagnosed as mass hysteria.

I asked Mark how would he treat someone suffering from mass hysteria.  Once a client has received a medical evaluation diagnosing mass hysteria the psychological treatment can begin.  Mark said the first part of the counseling would be to identify the stressor.  He would have them think back to prior weeks, looking for a cause they maybe didn't realize like something at work, bullying, or a bad grade.  Once the stress can be treated, it is likely the physical symptoms will disappear.