User:Emilykdew/sandbox

Shell-Shock refers to a mental condition caused by emotional shock sustained in combat, which often manifests itself as physical symptoms, called somatization. Synonyms include: moral invalidism, combat fatigue, war neurosis, neurasthenia, and PTSD (current term). It was thought to be caused by the blast of exploding shells or by "loss of nerve" meaning cowardice, but was later legitimized as a psychological disorder.

Definition
“A name given, esp. during the war of 1914-1918, to a certain psychological disturbances occurring in conditions of active warfare and supposed to result primarily from exposure to shell-fire”

Treatment
There were two main forms of treatment. The first, electric shock therapy, involved hooking the patient to a device which put out an electrical charge in hopes of restoring the patient's "nerve" through repeated shocks. This was the first and perhaps most commonly accepted method of treatment at the time of WWI. The second, psychotherapy or the talking cure, involves session with a professional trained to ask questions which will allow the patient introspection. With this method, the introspection was the key to recovery as it allowed the patient to fix a mental and emotional problem with a mental and emotional solution. However, this was still a novel technique during WWI. Both techniques were used with the intent of "curing" the patient in order to send them straight back out to the front lines.

Cowards?
"The contrast between the two methods of treatment resided in the two separate opinions of a patient who is suffering from shell-shock. On one hand, men with shell-shock were treated as degenerates, men who had literally lost their nerve, cowards. 'Were they all cowards? Were they "shellshocked" by the concussions of artillery fire? Or were they perhaps simply the victims of the terrible psychic conflict that modern war imposed, between the instinct for self-preservation and the destructive imperatives of combat? And how should they be treated? With moral preachments and shame? With electric shock treatment? Or with psychotherapy?' " The public blamed shell-shock on the men themselves, asserting that the soldiers had lost their nerve and become cowards. The view of warfare as valiant and honorable from the previous generation failed to catch-up to the hell that was trench warfare. As a result, the older generation and the home-front also failed to sympathize with the shell-shocked victims, unable to imagine the harsh reality of war. Some, like Dr. Rivers, rather than blaming the problem on the patient, considered shell-shock to be the reaction to suppressed feelings (fear, grief, rage, vulnerability, horror, guilt, love). With no verbal outlet, these emotions make themselves known with physical symptoms. They are not a sign of weakened nerve, but a signal of personal emotional suffering.

John Eric Erichsen
A professor of surgery at University College hospital, he eventually became the president of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1880 and received a baronet from Queen Victoria for his exemplary services. He was an authority on concussion of the spine. 1866: “We do not know how it is that when a magnet is struck a heavy blow with a hammer, the magnetic force is jarred, shaken, or concussed out of the horse-shoe. But we do know that it is so, and that the iron has lost its magnetic power. So, if the spine is badly jarred, shaken, or concussed by a blow or a shock of any kind communicated to the body, we find that the nervous force is to a certain extent shaken out of the man.” -- "On Railway and Other Injuries of the Nervous System"

Lewis Yealland
Yealland worked as a doctor at the National Hospital in London. He specialized in cases of the paralyzed, epileptic, and those suffering from hysteria. He had a reputation for quickly returning shell-shock patients to the battlefield. He is featured at the end of Pat Barker's novel, Regeneration where he is characterized as a particularly authoritative and unsympathetic character. He contrasts Rivers' preferred treatment of psychotherapy with electric shock therapy in an incredibly violent scene. In this portrayal, Yealland viewed patients as degenerates whose weakness would have caused them to break down eventually. electric shock therapy was used as a punishment to set soldiers back on track as shell-shock indicated a lack of discipline.

Sigmund Freud
The father of psychoanalysis, Freud's main contribution to the study of shell-shock was his work with repression as an inherent characteristic of the human consciousness. While his vision of repression revolved specifically around sexual intent, the idea of repressed and unconscious emotion as an underlying cause for seemingly unrelated actions provided framework with which to understand shell-shock as a psychological trauma rather than only by its physical symptoms. 1920: “The immediate cause of all war neuroses was an unconscious inclination in the soldier to withdraw from the demands, dangerous or outrageous to his feelings, made upon him by active service. Fear of losing his own life, opposition to the command to kill other people, rebellion against the ruthless suppression of his own personality by his superiors—these were the most important sources on which the inclination to escape from war was nourished.”

W. H. R. Rivers
Dr. Rivers is one of the main characters of Pat Barker's Regeneration, known both in the book and in life for treating the famous poet Siegfried Sassoon at Craiglockhart War Hospital were the doctor worked as an RAMC captain. He is also known for utilizing the talking cure as his favored method of treating shell-shock. Rather than using electric shock therapy to treat the physical symptoms or to punish the patient, Rivers believed healing would come from the release of the suppressed emotions through discussion and personal introspection on the part of the victim. Rivers was also an anthropologists, because of which he felt himself to be specifically qualified to ask his patients unbiased questions which would guide them towards their own betterment. Though his work is often compared to Freud's ideas, Rivers theories named self-preservation as the central suppressed tendency within all human beings.

Shock Hypothesis
This theory states that both surgical and emotional shock are found in the nervous system. Surgical shock is characterized by trembling, weak and fluttering pulse, rapid heartbeat, mental agitation, incoherent speech and thought, cold sweat, nausea and vomiting, and incontinence. This hypothesis describes the views of Dr. Erichsen and Dr. Yealland.

Repression Hypothesis
Shell-shock is comprised of defensive symptoms which work to preserve the ego. An overwhelming experience has led to a shattered emotional state which, if not released, are banished from human consciousness only to return in physical illness. The basis of this hypothesis is attributed to Sigmund Freud.

Adaptive Hypothesis
The symptoms of shell-shock are a result of the conflict between the human survival instinct and the needs of the group. Military training works to teach soldiers repression of feeling, fear, and horror to better prepare them for war. However, in doing so, this training causes soldiers confront with extremely traumatic events to have no way to express or master the resulting emotions. In turn, the body uses physical symptoms in order to deal with this emotional anxiety. This hypothesis is central to Dr. Rivers' work, making the talking cure the logical method of treatment by providing the patient a way to recognize and release these suppressed emotions. Other similar methods include using art such as poetry as a form of expression. (In fact, Rivers attributes Sassoon's lack of shell-shock on his effective use of poetry as an emotional outlet.)

Finished With the War: A Soldier's Declaration
I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier,convinced that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now becomes a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly states as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attained by negotiation. I have seen and endured the suffering of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insecurities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practise on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those as home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize. - S. Sassoon (July 1917)

To the Warmongers -- Siegfried Sassoon
I’m back again from hell With loathsome thoughts to sell; Secrets of death to tell; And horrors from the abyss. Young faces bleared with blood, Sucked down into the mud, You shall hear things like this, Till the tormented slain Crawl round and once gain, With limbs that twist awry Moan out their brutish pain As fighters pass them by. For you our battles shine With triumph half-divine; And the glory of the dead Kindles in each proud eye. But a curse is on my head, That shall not be unsaid, And the wounds in my heart are red, For I have watched them die.

Does It Matter? -- Siegfried Sassoon
Does it matter?—losing your legs?... For people will always be kind, And you need not show that you mind When the others come in after hunting To gobble their muffins and eggs. Does it matter?—losing your sight?... There’s such splendid work for the blind; And people will always be kind, As you sit on the terrace remembering And turning your face to the light. Do they matter?—those dreams from the pit?... You can drink and forget and be glad, And people won’t say that you’re mad; For they’ll know you’ve fought for your country And no one will worry a bit.

Disabled -- Wilfred Owen
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn, Voices of play and pleasure after day, Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him. About this time Town used to swing so gay When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim, -- In the old times, before he threw away his knees. Now he will never feel again how slim Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands, All of them touch him like some queer disease. There was an artist silly for his face, For it was younger than his youth, last year. Now he is old; his back will never brace; He's lost his colour very far from here, Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry, And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race, And leap of purple spurted from his thigh. One time he liked a bloodsmear down his leg, After the matches carried shoulder-high. It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg, He thought he'd better join. He wonders why. . . Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts. That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg, Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts, He asked to join. He didn't have to beg; Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years. Germans he scarcely thought of; and no fears Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes; And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears; Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits. And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers. Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal. Only a solemn man who brought him fruits Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul. Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes, And do what things the rules consider wise, And take whatever pity they may dole. To-night he noticed how the women's eyes Passed from him to the strong men that were whole. How cold and late it is! Why don't they come And put him into bed? Why don't they come?

Keep Calm and Carry On
Developed in Britain in 1939 in response to the rise of Naziism, the "Keep Calm and Carry On" sign was used throughout WWII and encouraged the British "stiff upper lip," suggesting repression and denial as a method of dealing with discouraging events. It has recently been re-appropriated as an internet meme and can be found on t-shirts, mugs, and other products.

Somatization
The process by which mental and emotional stresses become physical in the form of psychosomatic illnesses. "The occurrence of bodily symptoms in consequence of or as an expression of mental disorder."

PTSD
Short for: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder A severe anxiety disorder which occurs after an event or series of events which leads to psychological trauma. It was coined in the mid-1970s in reaction to the Vietnam War.