A depraved epistemology
Being embodied is a mixed fate for the hysteric, who does not want to be excluded by anyone from anything, and yet, given the shocking secrets of sexuality – revealed by the self’s won developing body knowledge experiences this body and what it knows as a depraved epistemology. This fact is a vital constituent in the format of the hysteric because in so many different ways – enervation in the nineteenth century, fatigue in the twentieth century – hysterics indicate trouble with the body. It imposes the unwanted, and the response to the body’s invasion of the self varies from irritated indifference to paranoid grudge.
Christopher Bollas, Hysteria, p. 19