Wars that Shaped a Diagnosis
It took one hundred years, from the time it was first recognized as a syndrome among hysterical women in the late 1800s to its inclusion in 1980 as a diagnosis in the manual of the American Psychiatric Association, for posttraumatic stress disorder to be recognized as a legitimate illness. (Herman 12, 28) Victims were psychologically inclined to mask and forget their awful experiences, and society at large preferred not to contemplate the subject of atrocity if it could be helped. Three times, however, in one century, the victims were so numerous and their trauma so documentable that society could not ignore their suffering - World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. (Herman 9) Many military and civilian doctors blundered horribly in their attempts to treat the illness. Their failures allowed the illness to be forgotten each time epidemic cases following war faded, but several brilliant minds over the century continued to tussle with the problem and contribute, little by little, to the shaping of a scientific diagnosis. The first doctors to recognize the problems caused by psychological trauma were Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud in their psychoanalysis of hysterical woman. However, their work became hopelessly bogged
Some topics in this essay:
Family Health, World War, British WWI, Distrustful VA, Impossible Hansen, Holmes' Rahe's, Dalloway Septimus, Mental Owen, Holmes Rahe, War II, shell shock, world war, stress disorder, family health, posttraumatic stress, posttraumatic stress disorder, disorder family health, disorder family, stress disorder family, alarm stage, adaption phase, health 1469, world war ii, return battle, victims shell shock,
Join now to see the rest of the essay!
Approximate Word count = 3502
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
Example Essays Home
