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Although many early psychoanalytic theorists agreed that men and women could exhibit hysteric symptoms, the term hysteria originated from the Greek word for “uterus.” The concept dated back nearly 4,000 years when the Egyptians believed behavioral abnormalities in women were caused by a “wandering womb.” The Greeks and Romans accepted this view and added the failure to have children or marry as a cause for hysteria. The Western symbol of hysteria as a “wondering womb” reinforced the sexist view of women as physiologically unstable and emotionally impaired.