Nostalgia Research Paper

The tactics used in World War I were radically different than that of previous wars. The majority of the war was fought in the trenches, and the war itself seemed to have no end. Due to this, the psychological impact of the war was unlike anything that had been seen before. During the early days of the war, the soldiers, on both sides, seemed to lack the dedication that would have been necessary to exterminate their enemy. However, as the war progressed, the desire to avenge their fallen comrades overcame their ethics and they began to kill their enemy indiscriminately. Surviving soldiers experienced a phenomenon that was, at that time, referred to as shell shock. Today we refer to this phenomenon as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. At this time, this psychological condition was misunderstood and the doctors lacked the training necessary to effectively treat this condition.

In World War II they changed to the title “Battle fatigue” and “Combat Stress Reaction” this is where the idea that war stressor actually causes a solider to have problem. Doctors were starting to take the symptoms a little more serious and were treating it with removal from combat for rest, of course eventually being sent back into combat later.

During World War I, thousands of British soldiers were diagnosed with “shell shock,” a condition which was thought to encompass both physical and psychological symptoms. The discovery of shell shock is typically considered to be an important catalyst in the gradual recognition of mental illnesses caused by combat. However, the characterizations of shell shock as an early discovery of post-traumatic stress disorder made by many historians are false. Shell shock should not be thought of as a credible wartime medical advancement, but as a false and primitive identification of war-trauma.

There are two forms of mental illness that are primarily associated with deployment, . they are post-traumatic stress disorder and Traumatic brain Injury. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a brain disorder that occurs after a traumatic event such as a car accident. This mental illness effects the psychological functions of the brain rather than the cognitive functions but can be caused by a physically traumatic event. The effect PTSD has on the brain causes people to have psychological flashbacks of an event when mental triggers similar to the traumatic event occur. When associated with war PTSD is commonly caused by death of a close friend or battalion member and can also be traced to isolation on the battlefield. Studies have shown that rates

(“Soldiers” 1) The American Psychiatric Association describes the disorder as the result of any sort of traumatic stress outside the normal range of human experience. Those troubled by the disease express the traits and abilities they learned to survive the initial situation, occasionally bursting and acting out those abilities physically. (“Coming” 1-2)

Post-traumatic stress were documented as early as the Civil War., yet only did it during World War I and II become known, it was known as “shell shock” or “battle fatigue”. Although they didn’t quite understand it yet, it was thought that shrapnel entered the brain during battle explosions and caused small brain hemorrhages. When symptoms occurred in war veterans who had not been exposed to explosions, it was then often viewed as a character flaw. In the 1970s, during and after the Vietnam War, post-traumatic stress received more serious research and documentation. In 1989, the National Center for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder was established in the U.S. About 5 percent of men and 10 percent of women in the United States have PTSD. In women, the

Many American soldiers returning from the traumas of war experience PTSD: an emotional illness that develops in some people who have experienced a shocking, scary, or dangerous event but is rarely acknowledged or fully understood. Throughout history, scientists have discovered different forms of PTSD other than just from war and many treatments on solving this illness. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was first acknowledged after the Civil War around 1870. Although there have been many changes in its name throughout history, the illness has always had the same effect on people. The term "Soldier's Heart" was used when people were looking at these veterans returning from Civil War combat and trying to understand why they had been changed. Soldier's

The United States has been engaged in many wars going all the way back to the war of 1812 to the war on terrorism and between these war many men were killed or wounded physically and mentally. In 1915 Charles Myers was a physician who also worked as a psychologist, he noticed that men were coming back from battle involuntarily shivering, crying, fearful, and loss of memory. Myers coined their condition as being shell-shocked, which was related to their exposure during combat. Many soldiers suffering from the condition of shell shock were deemed cowards and unfit for battle. Shell shock was treated with electric shocks and isolation. During the Vietnam war psychologist were being trained to dealing with military personnel dealing with combat related stress. These combat stress issues was identified as posttraumatic stress disorder and in 1980 it was noted in the DSM-III.

troops suffered extremely dangerous and unsettling conditions throughout the duration of the war. In fact, the war conditions were so bad, that many soldiers had later developed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD), a condition which was discovered a few years after the end of the Vietnam War. PTSD is a condition in which a person experiences a number of adverse effects in his/her psyche due to the result of a single, or a sequence of intensely traumatic event(s) that occurred in his/her lifetime. This disorder is now known to have severe long-term effects on the human mind, particularly those that distort how the brain perceives and reacts to stress. In many instances, those who have PTSD are likely to develop cognitive dissonance and various other mood disorders.

The American Civil War (1861-1865) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) mark the start of formal medical attempts to address the problems of military Veterans exposed to combat. European descriptions of the psychological impact of railroad accidents also added to early understanding of trauma-related conditions. In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) produced the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I), which included "gross stress reaction." This diagnosis was proposed for people who were relatively normal, but had symptoms from traumatic events such as disaster or combat. A problem was that this diagnosis assumed that reactions to trauma would resolve relatively quickly. If symptoms were still present after six months, another diagnosis had to be

Finley’s “From Soldier’s Heart to PTSD,” was about the evolution of how clinicians, physiatrists, and the military viewed what was happening to the men who went into war. At first, the symptoms that the soldiers were going through was referred to as “shell shock.” This lead to the debate whether the physical brain as opposed to the psychological mind could determine human behavior so “shell shock” became “war neurosis.” The increasing number of cases lead to the creating of the triage system which seem to help the soldiers. After many other war, physiatrists were still noticing the same symptoms even though the number of cases decreased. Advocates for the Vietnam war tried to make the government realized that these soldier where suffering due

Throughout the experience of living in the trenches, many wondered, imagined, and feared the death that they believed would come soon. Shellfire from the enemy, and the lack of protection is just one example of how easy it was to get killed in the trenches. Finally, many veterans suffered psychological issues along with breakdowns while they were in the trench warfare. One example of such a issue was shell shock, now known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Shell shock is a psychological disorder that came to place in World War I, and can be caused by witnessing/being part of warfare. About 19 British military hospitals were built for men suffering from shell shock during the war. In Britain, some cases were so severe that in 1928, 10 years after the war, approximately 65000 veterans were still receiving a treatment for their disorder. This example demonstrates that shell shocks not only affected soldiers life while they were on war, but it could have changed their whole life. To conclude, living in the trenches during World War I was a horrible experience due to bad health conditions, deaths, and psychological

Likenesses that identify with those of this disease can be found all through the story. Men and women of prior wars moreover mirrored the shared characteristics related to PTSD. In days of old, it was named "Shell Shock" and "Battle Fatigue." Because of studies directed by medical research organizations, e.g., The National Institute of Health (NIMH) we know and comprehend that PTSD impacts many people who have been exposed to and survived terrible accidents, calamities, and war. Three

This disorder is known for altering soldier’s thoughts and actions when they return from war. Worth states “A new study supports what a small group of military researchers has suspected for decades: That modern warfare destroys the brain” (Worth) to show the psychological effect war can have on soldiers. Most soldiers come back more violent and is are a threat to the common public. This author goes into how a physical event caused this disorder so it’s more of a physical disorder. There have been cases where soldiers will strangle their wives in their sleep because of their time in combat.

The Civil War was so horrific that many soldiers were left with psychological wounds that doctors did not know how to treat. Dorothea Dix, an American activist who advocated on behalf of the poor and insane was instrumental in the creation of the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington, D.C. in 1855. Because little was still know about PTSD, soldiers sent to this hospital because of their symptoms were embarrassed because they were being seen as weak and just home