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It was in the course of treating [[hysterical]] [[patient]]s in the 1890s that [[Freud]] developed the psychoanalytical method of [[treatment]] ([[free association]], etc.) and began to form the major concepts of [[psychoanalytic theory]].
[[Freud]]'s first properly psychoanalytic case history concerns the treatment of a hysterical woman known as "[[Dora]]."<ref>[[Freud|Freud, Sigmund]]. 1905e. [1901] "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria", [[SE]] VII, 3.</ref>
The classic symptomatology of [[hysteria]] involves physical [[symptoms]] such as local paralyses, pains and anaesthesias, for which no organic cause can be found, and which are articulated around an "imaginary autonomy" which bears no relation to the real structure of the nervous system.<ref>Lacan{{L}} 1951b. "Some reflections on the ego," ''Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 1951b'', vol. 34, 1953. p.13</ref>
However, although Lacan does discuss the symptomatology of [[hysteria]], linking it to the [[imago]] of the [[fragmented body]],<ref>{{E}} p.5</ref> he comes to define [[hysteria]] not as a set of [[symptom]]s but as a [[structure]].
