Treating the Trauma of the Great War

Treating the Trauma of the Great War PDF Author: Gregory M. Thomas
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807134368
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
From the outset of World War I, French doctors faced an apparent epidemic of puzzling neurological and psychiatric illnesses among soldiers. As they attempted to understand the causes of these illnesses, doctors organized specialized centers near the front, where they submitted soldiers to swift, humiliating treatments and then returned them to duty. At home, they interned the scores of civilians who succumbed to the war's strains in decrepit asylums or left them to fend for themselves. In Treating the Trauma of the Great War, Gregory M. Thomas explores the psychological effects of the war on French citizens, showing how doctors' understanding of mental illness produced deep, tangible effects in the lives of the men and women who suffered. Doctors vigorously debated the war's role in the genesis of the neuropsychiatric disturbances observed in soldiers and civilians, but most psychiatrists ultimately concluded that mental illnesses appeared primarily in individuals predisposed to disease. Consequently, doctors granted their patients few favors when making decisions about diagnostic labels, treatment regimes, and pension allocations, leaving many to endure illnesses without adequate care or sufficient financial support. In their quest to understand the psychological impact of war, Thomas argues, doctors focused more on demonstrating the capabilities of their medical specialties and serving a state at war than on treating patients. Those aims significantly affected doctors' scientific conclusions, their medical and legal decisions, and their treatment practices. When the war ended, psychiatric reformers used the trauma of war to their advantage, promoting the perception of France as a traumatized nation in need of new psychiatric institutions that could accommodate a large and growing pool of psychologically wounded citizens. Thomas draws on the vast medical literature produced during and after the war, including veterans' journals, parliamentary debates, newspaper articles, and medical administrative reports, infusing his narrative with a vivid human element. Though psychiatrists ultimately failed to raise the status of their specialty, Thomas reveals how the war helped precipitate lasting changes in psychiatric practice.

Shell Shock

Shell Shock PDF Author: P. Leese
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230287921
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
To the British soldiers of the Great War who heard about it, 'shell shock' was uncanny, amusing and sad. To those who experienced it, the condition was shameful, unjustly stigmatized and life-changing. The first full-length study of the British 'shell shocked' soldiers of the Great War combines social and medical history to investigate the experience of psychological casualties on the Western Front, in hospitals, and through their postwar lives. It also investigates the condition's origin and consequences within British culture.

Healing War Trauma

Healing War Trauma PDF Author: Raymond Monsour Scurfield
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113657624X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Healing War Trauma details a broad range of exciting approaches for healing from the trauma of war. The techniques described in each chapter are designed to complement and supplement cognitive-behavioral treatment protocols—and, ultimately, to help clinicians transcend the limits of those protocols. For those veterans who do not respond productively to—or who have simply little interest in—office-based, regimented, and symptom-focused treatments, the innovative approaches laid out in Healing War Trauma will inspire and inform both clinicians and veterans as they chart new paths to healing.

Treating the Trauma of the Great War

Treating the Trauma of the Great War PDF Author: Gregory M. Thomas
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 080714407X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
From the outset of World War I, French doctors faced an apparent epidemic of puzzling neurological and psychiatric illnesses among soldiers. As they attempted to understand the causes of these illnesses, doctors organized specialized centers near the front, where they submitted soldiers to swift, humiliating treatments and then returned them to duty. At home, they interned the scores of civilians who succumbed to the war's strains in decrepit asylums or left them to fend for themselves. In Treating the Trauma of the Great War, Gregory M. Thomas explores the psychological effects of the war on French citizens, showing how doctors' understanding of mental illness produced deep, tangible effects in the lives of the men and women who suffered. Doctors vigorously debated the war's role in the genesis of the neuropsychiatric disturbances observed in soldiers and civilians, but most psychiatrists ultimately concluded that mental illnesses appeared primarily in individuals predisposed to disease. Consequently, doctors granted their patients few favors when making decisions about diagnostic labels, treatment regimes, and pension allocations, leaving many to endure illnesses without adequate care or sufficient financial support. In their quest to understand the psychological impact of war, Thomas argues, doctors focused more on demonstrating the capabilities of their medical specialties and serving a state at war than on treating patients. Those aims significantly affected doctors' scientific conclusions, their medical and legal decisions, and their treatment practices. When the war ended, psychiatric reformers used the trauma of war to their advantage, promoting the perception of France as a traumatized nation in need of new psychiatric institutions that could accommodate a large and growing pool of psychologically wounded citizens. Thomas draws on the vast medical literature produced during and after the war, including veterans' journals, parliamentary debates, newspaper articles, and medical administrative reports, infusing his narrative with a vivid human element. Though psychiatrists ultimately failed to raise the status of their specialty, Thomas reveals how the war helped precipitate lasting changes in psychiatric practice.

War and the Soul

War and the Soul PDF Author: Edward Tick
Publisher: Quest Books
ISBN: 0835630056
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
War and PTSD are on the public's mind as news stories regularly describe insurgency attacks in Iraq and paint grim portraits of the lives of returning soldiers afflicted with PTSD. These vets have recurrent nightmares and problems with intimacy, can’t sustain jobs or relationships, and won’t leave home, imagining “the enemy” is everywhere. Dr. Edward Tick has spent decades developing healing techniques so effective that clinicians, clergy, spiritual leaders, and veterans’ organizations all over the country are studying them. This book, presented here in an audio version, shows that healing depends on our understanding of PTSD not as a mere stress disorder, but as a disorder of identity itself. In the terror of war, the very soul can flee, sometimes for life. Tick's methods draw on compelling case studies and ancient warrior traditions worldwide to restore the soul so that the veteran can truly come home to community, family, and self.

Treating the Trauma of the Great War

Treating the Trauma of the Great War PDF Author: Gregory M. Thomas
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807136336
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
From the outset of World War I, French doctors faced an apparent epidemic of puzzling neurological and psychiatric illnesses among soldiers. As they attempted to understand the causes of these illnesses, doctors organized specialized centers near the front, where they submitted soldiers to swift, humiliating treatments and then returned them to duty. At home, they interned the scores of civilians who succumbed to the war's strains in decrepit asylums or left them to fend for themselves. In Treating the Trauma of the Great War, Gregory M. Thomas explores the psychological effects of the war on French citizens, showing how doctors' understanding of mental illness produced deep, tangible effects in the lives of the men and women who suffered. Doctors vigorously debated the war's role in the genesis of the neuropsychiatric disturbances observed in soldiers and civilians, but most psychiatrists ultimately concluded that mental illnesses appeared primarily in individuals predisposed to disease. Consequently, doctors granted their patients few favors when making decisions about diagnostic labels, treatment regimes, and pension allocations, leaving many to endure illnesses without adequate care or sufficient financial support. In their quest to understand the psychological impact of war, Thomas argues, doctors focused more on demonstrating the capabilities of their medical specialties and serving a state at war than on treating patients. Those aims significantly affected doctors' scientific conclusions, their medical and legal decisions, and their treatment practices. When the war ended, psychiatric reformers used the trauma of war to their advantage, promoting the perception of France as a traumatized nation in need of new psychiatric institutions that could accommodate a large and growing pool of psychologically wounded citizens. Thomas draws on the vast medical literature produced during and after the war, including veterans' journals, parliamentary debates, newspaper articles, and medical administrative reports, infusing his narrative with a vivid human element. Though psychiatrists ultimately failed to raise the status of their specialty, Thomas reveals how the war helped precipitate lasting changes in psychiatric practice.

The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine

The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine PDF Author: Thomas Helling
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643139002
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
A startling narrative revealing the impressive medical and surgical advances that quickly developed as solutions to the horrors unleashed by World War I. The Great War of 1914-1918 burst on the European scene with a brutality to mankind not yet witnessed by the civilized world. Modern warfare was no longer the stuff of chivalry and honor; it was a mutilative, deadly, and humbling exercise to wipe out the very presence of humanity. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of maimed, beaten, and bleeding men surged into aid stations and hospitals with injuries unimaginable in their scope and destruction. Doctors scrambled to find some way to salvage not only life but limb. The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine provides a startling and graphic account of the efforts of teams of doctors and researchers to quickly develop medical and surgical solutions. Those problems of gas gangrene, hemorrhagic shock, gas poisoning, brain trauma, facial disfigurement, broken bones, and broken spirits flooded hospital beds, stressing caregivers and prompting medical innovations that would last far beyond the Armistice of 1918 and would eventually provide the backbone of modern medical therapy. Thomas Helling’s description of events that shaped refinements of medical care is a riveting account of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of men and women to deter the total destruction of the human body and human mind. His tales of surgical daring, industrial collaboration, scientific discovery, and utter compassion provide an understanding of the horror that laid a foundation for the medical wonders of today. The marvels of resuscitation, blood transfusion, brain surgery, X-rays, and bone setting all had their beginnings on the battlefields of France. The influenza contagion in 1918 was an ominous forerunner of the frightening pandemic of 2020-2021. For anyone curious about the true terrors of war and the miracles of modern medicine, this is a must read.

Psychological Trauma and the Legacies of the First World War

Psychological Trauma and the Legacies of the First World War PDF Author: Jason Crouthamel
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331933476X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This transnational, interdisciplinary study of traumatic neurosis moves beyond the existing histories of medical theory, welfare, and symptomatology. The essays explore the personal traumas of soldiers and civilians in the wake of the First World War; they also discuss how memory and representations of trauma are transmitted between patients, doctors and families across generations. The book argues that so far the traumatic effects of the war have been substantially underestimated. Trauma was shaped by gender, politics, and personality. To uncover the varied forms of trauma ignored by medical and political authorities, this volume draws on diverse sources, such as family archives and narratives by children of traumatized men, documents from film and photography, memoirs by soldiers and civilians. This innovative study challenges us to re-examine our approach to the complex psychological effects of the First World War.

Traumatic Memories of the Second World War and After

Traumatic Memories of the Second World War and After PDF Author: Peter Leese
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319334700
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
This collection investigates the social and cultural history of trauma to offer a comparative analysis of its individual, communal, and political effects in the twentieth century. Particular attention is given to witness testimony, to procedures of personal memory and collective commemoration, and to visual sources as they illuminate the changing historical nature of trauma. The essays draw on diverse methodologies, including oral history, and use varied sources such as literature, film and the broadcast media. The contributions discuss imaginative, communal and political responses, as well as the ways in which the later welfare of traumatized individuals is shaped by medical, military, and civilian institutions. Incorporating innovative methodologies and offering a thorough evaluation of current research, the book shows new directions in historical trauma studies.

Memory, War and Trauma

Memory, War and Trauma PDF Author: Nigel C. Hunt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139489607
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Many millions of people are affected by the trauma of war. Psychologists have a good understanding of how experiences of war impact on memory, but the significance of external environmental influences is often disregarded. Memory, War and Trauma focuses on our understanding of the psychosocial impact of war in its broadest sense. Nigel C. Hunt argues that, in order to understand war trauma, it is critical to develop an understanding not only of the individual perspective but also of how societal and cultural factors impact on the outcome of an individual's experience. This is a compelling book which helps to demonstrate why some people suffer from post-traumatic stress while other people don't, and how narrative understanding is important to the healing process. Its multidisciplinary perspective will enable a deeper understanding of both individual traumatic stress and the structures of memory.