In this study a group of psychiatric inpatients with the diagnosis of hysterical personality (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, ed 2) was compared to a control inpatient population. The index patients were young women who differed significantly from the controls in several ways, especially the occurrence of depressive symptoms, with or without suicide attempts. On the other hand, important differences were not found in many areas thought by others to be of consequence.
Even though there was a high incidence of depressive symptoms, the index patients were not treated as if they were suffering from depressive syndromes primarily, but rather that their symptoms were expressions of traits of emotional instability and self-dramatization.