Mace C J
Br J Psychiatry. 1992 Sep;161:369-77. doi: 10.1192/bjp.161.3.369.
'Hysterical conversion' dates from a century before Freud, from an important attempt to rationalise the nosological status of hysteria. Freud's own concept of 'conversion' followed as a quite independent synthesis of 19th-century medical thinking on the subject. Subsequent analytical usage of 'conversion' which has influenced the description of hysterical syndromes within mainstream psychiatry, has not been consistent with Freud's own.