Understanding Shell Shock

This is a historical scientific article exploring the 'environment' around military society and the discussion of mental trauma at the time since it was a new topic.

This is a personal story of a doctor who saw firsthand the ill-preparedness of the medical professionals in the cases of mental health of those coming home from war. He explains that no one had a proper understanding of it on the military side of medical professionalism nor on the civilian.

The Combat Neurosis as the title suggests was the current understanding of medical professionals with the idea of combat-related and or caused mental issues, or rather lack thereof. It includes firsthand quotes from medical 'professionals' during the time period and with that, evidence of the lack of acknowledgment of the hardships war could play on a body or brain.

This image provides physical evidence of the effects of shell shock other than just the spoken and or written words of medical 'professionals' during this time.

This article discusses shell shock in war as a consideration for a form of casualty, meaning in military terms, the removal of that soldier from active duty or service until 'cured'.

Shell Shock was widely misunderstood by any medical and or military personnel that studied it. With the idea of the glorification of war still circulating around America, little was understood or seemed like it needed to be understood, about the mental state of the returning soldiers. However, as soldiers would return after World War One, now suddenly mentally ill, the realization began to set in that there was an issue. This realization at the time came into little effect however due to the previously mentioned glorification of war and the Progressive ideals of a more perfect civilization through selective human genealogy. This dangerous mix of ideals backed by steady governmental progressivism led to a counter-culture against ill-speakers of the government. Talks were had between those now who believed in the ‘perfect soldier’ versus those who saw the rising problem of the traumatically caused mental states of combat veterans. Evidence of these sides can be seen in an segment written within the American Journal of Sociology, titled “The Combat Neuroses”. This segment written by an S. Kirson Weinberg discusses the two clashing sides of the progressive discussion on war combat veterans and the transition into understanding the mental trauma on a medically oriented level. In this article Weinberg writes first a quote outlining war literature and the issues with the progressive ideals within it. He writes, “the vast quantity of the early war literature attributed neurotic collapse to ‘predisposition’, ‘inferior heredity’ or ‘taint’." ¹ This brings forth the Progressive ideals sprouting within military doctrine, as well as the ill-preparedness of the medical profession and military doctrine to the problems of shell shock. In this quote, the analysis of said war literature attributes shell shock to poor heredity or something wrong with the individual, prior to intensive combat service. Weinberg then goes on to write after this that “it was soon evident that substantial reliable, untainted soldiers could disintegrate” ² Not only does this second part of the quote outline the hero, untouchable complex seeming to surround soldiers during this time, but it also does to highlight the ‘ideal’ soldier in the mind of the ever-growing progressive community. This quote shows confusion if seen through the eyes of the people trying to understand why soldiers were not coming back the same as how they left. The progressively perfect, untouchable, ‘untainted’ soldiers were now as Weinberg had put it, “disintegrating”. The term of disintegrating of course in this sense pertaining to mentally, because so little was known. Disintegrating, a scientific term of sorts, refers to a complete and utter break down of either two substances into one or one into nothing with the help and assistance of another. The use of this term shows us what medical professionals attributed these veterans to, a complete breakdown, and due to the gilded terms suggesting untaintedness and unbreaking reliability, also shows us just how little they knew about what was to cause such a breakdown.

Due to there being little to no knowledge on either military or civilian sides of the medical profession, as shown, the transition of soldiers back into a ‘normal’ civilian society proved all the more difficult. This integration from both a military and civilian side can be analyzed through a section written in Human Organization titled: “Psychiatry in Military Society – 1” by a David G. Mandelbaum. This section written in 1954 gathers not only commentary but insight as well into the 40s and 50s and their basic understanding of what shell shock could mean for society. To understand this possible integration, Mandelbaum includes a quotation via interview with a Doctor William C. Menninger in which Menninger states that “millions of people became aware, for the first time, of the effects of environmental stress on personality” ³ This ties back in the  point made earlier in which a population misunderstanding the ‘perfect’ soldier, now were slowly seeing the possible after-effects war might have on someone’s mental state and capacity. Menninger then states in this interview that “They learned that such stresses could interfere with or partially wreck an individual’s efficiency and his satisfaction with life.” ⁴ Menninger, who would later become the Army’s chief consultant in neuropsychiatry during World War two, spoke about the audience ‘they’ here, whether being military or civilian, as if they were new to the concept of shell shock. To the historical analyzer looking back on this from the overview, it is what is not said about these people that speaks with this quote, more so than already what is said. Menninger whether knowingly or not, reveals the population’s minimal consideration into the shaky integration of veterans into a 9 to 5 working, average at the time, society.