The perfect wife kills her war hero husband because of obsession, jealousy and deceit. While being evaluated to stand trial, her convincing manner sends her doctor to find her invisible and drives an orderly to the brink.

A young woman seeking treatment for her schizophrenia is taken captive by a deranged doctor and subjected to illegal experimentation. Her every attempt at escape is blocked by those around her, as she loses touch with her already infirm grip on reality.

In 1900, Sigmund Freud began treating a 17-year old girl he called "Dora." Her parents brought her to therapy after she accused a family friend of sexual assault. Freud's account of his sessions with Dora was the only major case history he published of a female patient. Intercutting his published text with a scripted version told from Dora's point of view, Hysterical Girl revisits this landmark case. Woven throughout are several decades of cinema, Congressional hearings, and media coverage. What emerges is a portrait of the grip that Freud’s theory of hysteria has had on popular culture over the past century and into the present day.