# The History of Bad Ideas: Hysteria

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/past-present-future-6300636/the-history-of-bad-ideas-hysteria
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/past-present-future-6300636/the-history-of-bad-ideas-hysteria.md
Podcast: [Past Present Future](https://stenobird.com/podcast/past-present-future-6300636)
Published: 2026-07-08T05:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/NSR2142603137.mp3
Audio file: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/NSR2142603137.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/past-present-future-6300636/episodes/the-history-of-bad-ideas-hysteria
Duration seconds: 3524

## Resource

For the first in a new set of episodes about bad ideas with interesting histories David talks to the writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis about hysteria, an ancient idea that became a very modern diagnosis. Why was hysteria associated with both madness and saintliness? How did Charcot and then Freud use hysteria to rationalise otherwise baffling female behaviour? What happens when group hysteria takes hold? And why do we still find it so hard to do without these kinds of labels? You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next time in The History of Bad Ideas: Narrative History Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/past-present-future-6300636/episodes/the-history-of-bad-ideas-hysteria/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/past-present-future-6300636/the-history-of-bad-ideas-hysteria.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.