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Research Paper On Shell Shock

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When a person is uprooted from their everyday life of comfort to venture off to a foreign land, they often take a time to cope with their new living conditions. This is particularly stressful to the members of a military, since everyday life is now of the highest intensity, given that every action they take could be the deciding reason of whether they live or die. For some fortunate people, they might never have to deal with any high stress situations, however this is not the case for most. Many individuals in the deployed environment are part of unit where they are subject to seeing people losing their life, who are often members of the same unit or the enemy combatant. For these individuals, it is often difficult for them to adjust back to…show more content…
This was believed to occur when subjects were exposed to ordnance exploding in front of them, but the symptoms are again similar to those of PTSD. The symptoms included panic and sleep problems, and in an effort to rid the subject of the disorder the person was subject to water or shock therapy. These practices potentially caused more detriment than relief to the patient. Then in WWII, the term ‘shell shock’ was replaced with ‘battle fatigue’ since in many instances the disorder became present in soldiers who had spent long periods of time on the front lines. Following a soldiers diagnosis, they were given time to recover before returning to the lines, and from this the first steps were taken to look after a soldiers mental health by focusing on preventing stress and promoting recovery (Friedman). Since then, the diagnosis of PTSD has been pushed around in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, where it was initially believed to only last a short period of time. Later, it was included in “adjustment reaction to adult life” which was highly insufficient to summarize the disorder. After continuing research, it was noted that PTSD is a relatively common disorder with evidence showing that “4% of men and 10% of women will be diagnosed with [it] in their lifetime” (Friedman). Also, PTSD is no longer categorized as an anxiety…show more content…
This instance comes from ancient Greece, during the build up to the Trojan War while the ships were on their way to Troy some would stop at islands on the way. In the course of one of these disembarks, Philoctetes was wandering around and was bitten by a snake. This resulted in him having constant outcries of pain and a pus-filled wound that his shipmates would rather not have to deal with, so they abandoned him on the island. However, after nine years of fighting the war it is prophesized that only Philoctetes, an outstanding archer, can end the
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