Wessley

Wilfred Owen - poet

He fell into a shell hole and suffered concussion; he was blown up by a trench mortar and spent several days unconscious on an embankment lying amongst the remains of one of his fellow officers. Soon afterward, Owen was diagnosed as suffering from neurasthenia or shell shock and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh for treatment. It was while recuperating at Craiglockhart that he met fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon, an encounter that was to transform Owen's life.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen#War_service

Siegfried Sassoon - poet

Citation for military cross:
2nd Lt. Siegfried Lorraine [sic] Sassoon, 3rd (attd. 1st) Bn., R. W. Fus.

For conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy's trenches. He remained for 1½ hours under rifle and bomb fire collecting and bringing in our wounded. Owing to his courage and determination all the killed and wounded were brought in.[10]
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Opposition to war:

At the end of a spell of convalescent leave, Sassoon declined to return to duty; instead, encouraged by pacifist friends such as Bertrand Russell and Lady Ottoline Morrell, he sent a letter to his commanding officer entitled Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration. Forwarded to the press and read out in the House of Commons by a sympathetic member of Parliament, the letter was seen by some as treasonous ("I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority") or at best as condemning the war government's motives ("I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest"[12]). Rather than court-martial Sassoon, the Under-Secretary of State for War, Ian Macpherson, decided that he was unfit for service and had him sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh, where he was officially treated for neurasthenia ("shell shock").[11]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon#War_opposition_and_Craiglockhart
 
Luther Blissett said:
Wilfred Owen - poet



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen#War_service

Siegfried Sassoon - poet

Citation for military cross:


Opposition to war:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon#War_opposition_and_Craiglockhart
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The father (Asa Watkins) of a friend of mine was a conscientious objector during WWII. He was sent to "serve" at a terrible, abusive mental hospital where conditions were horrid, and went on to be an activist for mental health reform. (He was in an excellent documentary about this called "The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It.")

Other objectors were used as human guinea pigs for "science":


I think it is important (while recognising there are some legitimate uses for psychotherapy) to examine the history of psychiatry and how it has gone hand in hand with removal of agency in individuals who don't fit the ever-shifting "norm" and become "inconvenient" to someone or something. Like the reversal of terms like "functional" "medically unexplained" etc, the discipline itself is not what it claims to be on the surface.
 
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This is the paper related to this presentation "Different Shell, Same Shock".

Initial theories of blast related neuropathology were soon abandoned in favour of psychological aetiologies.234 The presentations of shell shock were recognised as functional disorders, highlighting beyond any doubt that “hysteria” could affect men too, and in large numbers.
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I don't have the whole paper but that's quite explicitly calling PTSD pure hysteria in 2017.
 
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I am sure I read in the New Scientist a few years ago that US soldier's helmets were being redesigned or they were considering it, because they had found that concussive force causes small areas of brain damage. It makes perfect sense that bouncing the brain will cause physical tearing. They know that repeated concussion leads to long term damage and changes have been made to school sports.

It is beyond belief that in 2017 they think that the medicine of a hundred years before should have precedence over MRIs.
 
I recently read (don't ask me how I came across it, it is a convoluted tale-it started with the Brenva Face of Mont Blanc) that the much-vaunted Rivers-he of Craiglockhart and Siegfried Sassoon fame- wrote, in private correspondence, that he thought he had never helped anyone. How different to modern times.
 
I meant to add to my last post that this subject exposes the fallacies of Wessely. When he mentions "neurasthenia" he wishes it to be thought that he is referring to some original sense. By 1918 the (EDIT main) way in which the term was used was probably as a war psycho-neurosis.
 
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Mithriel said:
I am sure I read in the New Scientist a few years ago that US soldier's helmets were being redesigned or they were considering it, because they had found that concussive force causes small areas of brain damage. It makes perfect sense that bouncing the brain will cause physical tearing. They know that repeated concussion leads to long term damage and changes have been made to school sports.

It is beyond belief that in 2017 they think that the medicine of a hundred years before should have precedence over MRIs.
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There are a myriad of plausible explanations but it is complicated that all PTSD sufferers are lumped together. It is not unlikely that the acute stress of war would cause physiological changes. That is very different from hysteria.
 
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