{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,4]],"date-time":"2026-07-04T12:13:27Z","timestamp":1783167207880,"version":"3.54.6"},"reference-count":57,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,2,1]],"date-time":"2017-02-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1485907200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Hist Psychiatry"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2017,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the unspoken fear of syphilis played a significant role in the development of beliefs about female sexuality. Many women were afraid of sexual relationships with men because they feared contracting syphilis, which was, at that time, untreatable. Women also feared passing this disease on to their children. Women\u2019s sexual aversion, or repression, became a focus for Freud and his colleagues, whose theory of psychosexual development was based on their treatment of women. This article examines the case of Dora, the memoirs of Mabel Dodge Luhan and other sources to argue that the fear of syphilis was a significant factor in upper- and middle-class women\u2019s avoidance of heterosexual relationships. The fear of syphilis, in turn, became a significant factor in the psychoanalytic construction of female sexuality. The social suppression of the fear of syphilis has had a profound impact on theories of women\u2019s development. The implication for psychiatry is that our models of psychological development occur within a sociocultural milieu and cannot escape suppressed aspects of our culture.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/0957154x17691472","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,2,22]],"date-time":"2017-02-22T04:22:37Z","timestamp":1487737357000},"page":"195-208","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["The \u2018secret\u2019 source of \u2018female hysteria\u2019: the role that syphilis played in the construction of female sexuality and psychoanalysis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"28","author":[{"given":"Lois P","family":"Rudnick","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Massachusetts, Boston"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Alison M","family":"Heru","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Colorado, Denver"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,2,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-0957154X17691472","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1176\/appi.books.9780890425596"},{"key":"bibr2-0957154X17691472","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1128\/CMR.18.1.205-216.2005"},{"key":"bibr3-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"Libidinal Currents: Sexuality and the Shaping of Modernism","author":"Boone JA","year":"1998"},{"key":"bibr4-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States Since 1880","author":"Brandt AM","year":"1987"},{"key":"bibr5-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"Studies on Hysteria in Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud","author":"Breuer J","year":"1955"},{"key":"bibr6-0957154X17691472","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.4159\/9780674029071"},{"key":"bibr7-0957154X17691472","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/3046058"},{"key":"bibr8-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492","author":"Crosby AW","year":"1972"},{"key":"bibr9-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"Bram Stoker\u2019s \u201cDracula\u201d: Sucking Through the Century, 1897\u20131997","author":"Davison CM","year":"1997"},{"key":"bibr10-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"Oscar Wilde","author":"Ellmann R","year":"1988"},{"key":"bibr11-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria","author":"Freud S","year":"1905"},{"key":"bibr12-0957154X17691472","first-page":"128","volume-title":"1915, the Cultural Moment: The New Politics, the New Woman, the New Psychology, the New Art & the New Theatre in America","author":"Gifford S","year":"1991"},{"key":"bibr13-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"The Crux","author":"Gilman CP","year":"1911"},{"key":"bibr14-0957154X17691472","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7591\/9781501745805"},{"key":"bibr15-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"Vita: The Life of Vita Sackville-West","author":"Glendinning V","year":"1992"},{"key":"bibr16-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"Woman\u2019s Body, Woman\u2019s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America","author":"Gordon L","year":"1976"},{"key":"bibr17-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"The Mad Among Us: A History of the Care of America\u2019s Mentally Ill","author":"Grob GN","year":"1994"},{"key":"bibr18-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"Freud and the Americans: The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis in the United States, 1876\u20131917","author":"Hale N","year":"1971"},{"key":"bibr19-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis","author":"Hayden D","year":"2003"},{"key":"bibr20-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"Syphilis: A Treatise on Etiology, Pathology, Symptomology, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Prophylaxis and Treatment","author":"Hazen HH","year":"1928"},{"key":"bibr21-0957154X17691472","volume-title":"A Synopsis of Clinical Syphilis","author":"Howles JK","year":"1943"},{"key":"bibr22-0957154X17691472","first-page":"551","volume-title":"Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. 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