They Called It Shell Shock - Stefanie Linden

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Résumé :
This is an excellent volume for anyone interested in the psychiatry of combat stress or seeking to understand the nuances of mental and functional disorders experienced in modern warfare. -- Journal of Military History

They Called it Shell Shock provides a new perspective on the psychological reactions to the traumatic experiences of combat. In the Great War, soldiers were incapacitated by traumatic disorders at an epidemic scale that surpassed anything known from previous armed conflicts. Drawing upon individual histories from British and German servicemen, this book illustrates the universal suffering of soldiers involved in this conflict and its often devastating consequences for their mental health. Dr Stefanie Linden explains how shell shock challenged the fabric of prewar society, including its beliefs about gender (superiority of the male character), class (superiority of the officer class) and scientific progress. She argues that the shell shock epidemic had enduring consequences for the understanding of the human mind and the power that it can exert over the body. The author has analyzed over 660 original medical case records from shell-shocked soldiers who were treated at the world-leading neurological/psychiatric institutions of the time: the National Hospital at Queen Square in London, the Charit? Psychiatric Department in Berlin and the Jena Military Hospital at Jena/Germany. This is thus the first shell shock book to be based on original case records from both sides of the battle. It includes a rich collection of hitherto unpublished firsthand accounts of life in the trenches and soldiers' traumas.

The focal point of the book is the soldier's experience on the battlefield that triggers his nervous breakdown - and the author links this up with the soldiers' biographies and provides a perspective on their pre-war civilian life and experience of the war. She then describes the fate of individual soldiers...

Biographie:
their journey through the system of military hospitals and specialist units at home...

Sommaire:
their psychological and neurological symptoms...