PTSD or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, is a psychiatric disorder that people get after experiencing extremely traumatic events. PTSD could affect people who have been victims of terrorist attacks, rape, or serious accidents, but it is most commonly seen in our veterans returning from war. Many of the atrocities that are seen in war and some of the things veterans may have had to participate in, take a toll on their mental health and leave them with PTSD.
Evidence of mental trauma after war could be traced back to ancient Greece in the literature of Hippocrates. It could also be seen in the writings of Shakespeare. However, formal treatment for PTSD wouldn’t come until the Civil War in 1861. PTSD was given a variety of names over the course of history. During the Civil War, soldiers were diagnosed with “soldiers heart”, which included symptoms of anxiety, rapid heart rate and trouble breathing. A U.S. doctor named Jacob Mendez Da Costa studied soldiers in the Civil War. He described their conditions as overstimulation of the heart’s nervous system and prescribed the soldiers drugs to help cope with their symptoms. This condition became known as “Da Costa’s Syndrome”. Fast forward to 1919, soldiers returning home from World War I with symptoms of PTSD were diagnosed with “shell shock”. Symptoms included severe anxiety and sleeping issues. Doctors originally believed that “shell shock” was a result of brain damage by the loud noises of artillery guns and bombs going off. Soldiers were given a few days rest and then were expected to return to normal and European soldiers were treated with hydrotherapy and electrotherapy. When World War II came around, “shell shock” was given a more formal medical name called, “Combat Stress Reaction”. In order to treat Combat Stress Reaction, soldiers were given quick and effective medical treatment to physical injuries and nursed back to full health before returning home or back into combat. Another way soldiers were treated for Combat Stress Reaction was by receiving moral support from fellow soldiers and developing a sense of unity to hopefully relieve stress and create peace of mind. In following years, it became apparent that soldiers weren’t the only ones who could suffer from Combat Stress Reaction symptoms. In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association created the first Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. One of the disorders listed in the manual was “gross stress reaction”. By renaming it gross stress reaction, it made it suggested that people could also suffer these symptoms as a result of experiencing traumatic events such as natural disasters, freak accidents, and more. However, in 1968 the DSM version II came out, renaming the condition again to, “adjustment reaction to adult life”. Despite overwhelming evidence that there were endless causes of this condition, the manual limited the condition to only three circumstances that can cause symptoms. Those circumstances were unwanted pregnancies coupled with suicidal thoughts, fear linked to combat, and prisoners facing death row. During the 1970’s, there was a lot of research done on holocaust survivors, rape victims, and Vietnam veterans. The research pointed to similar symptoms in these groups of people and in 1980 the condition was officially named Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and was adopted into the DSM III.
PTSD today is widely understood in the medical field. There’s many treatments for PTSD such as, therapy, learning breathing techniques to cope with PTSD, and medications including benzodiazepines, Prozac, Zoloft and more. Another common treatment is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EMDR is when a patient concentrates on their experience while watching a doctor move their hand, flash a light or make a sound. The goal of EMDR is to try an associate positivity with your experience to try and soften the pain.
In conclusion, PTSD has always had its place in the history of mental health. Its had multiple names throughout history but has always been a serious issue in our returning vets, law enforcement officers and everyday citizens who have experienced tragedies in their lives. Modern day medicine and health techniques have made it easier for people to deal with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.