Carol Wang

I’m Carol, a final-year Philosophy with Psychology student. I have greatly enjoyed the Navigating Psychopathology module. It contains a wide range of content distinct from those offered by the psychology department and integrates with other disciplines, making it very inspiring.

About the project

The psychological harm from war is as crucial as the physical injuries, particularly the long-term effects of trauma on veterans. During WWI, the term "Shell Shock", first published by Charles Myers (1915), was used to describe those traumatic psychological/physical symptoms caused by battlefields. Symptoms like irritability, sleeping problems and tremors affect soldiers' everyday lives and social relationships. Over 55% of WWII veterans are suffering from chronic symptoms, and 23% have a lifetime prevalence of such post-war symptoms (Herrmann et al.,1994), now known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Based on the study by Edgar Jones and Simon Wessely (2006), the early attitudes of "Shell Shock" during WWI and WWII have influenced the understanding of PTSD. This essay will explore the impact of "Shell Shock" on the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD by introducing the historical background of shell shock and its treatment. It will discuss the paradigm shift in the 1970s, which promoted the diagnosis of the disorder. Later, the essay will compare historical and modern approaches to the understanding and treatment of the disorder from psychological and neuroscientific perspectives and examine the integration of cognitive therapies with physical mechanism-based treatments. Finally, considering that not every patient has identical symptoms or changes in brain function, which undoubtedly complicates the treatment of PTSD, the essay further examines whether PTSD should be viewed as a single, unified disease category or as a complex, personalised condition.