Download Section I: Analysis of the Personality of Adolf Hitler with ...

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1. Hysteria. - Hitler has exhibit ed various forms
of hysterical dissociation, most notably in the two
symptoms which constituted his war neurosis in 1918,
namely blindness and aphonia (mutism). He experiences
periods of marked abstraction , violent emotional
outbursts, visions of hallucinatory clarity. In
speaking before crowds he is virtually possessed.
He clearly belongs to the sensational company of
history-making hysterics, combining, as he does,
some of the attributes of the primitive shaman, the
religious visionary, and the crack-brained demag03ue -
consummate actors, one and all.
It is important to note, however, that Hitler
has a large measure ' of ' control ' over his complexes.
He uses an emotional outburst to get his own way,
turning it on or off as the occasion requires. As
Erikson says, he "knows how to exploit his hysteria •••
On the stage of German history" Hitler senses to what
extent it is safe and expedient to let his own personality
represent with hysterical abandon what lives
in every German listener and reader."
2. Schizophrenia.- Psychiatrists are not unfamiliar
with borderline states lying between hystoria
and schizophrenia.
In some cases the former develops