PTSD : a short history / Allan V. Horwitz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Horwitz, Allan V., author.

Series:

Johns Hopkins biographies of disease.

Johns Hopkins biographies of disease

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic--history.

Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xviii, 238 pages) : 1 illustration

Edition:

1st ed.

Manufacture:

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2018

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

Summary:

Post-traumatic stress disorder - and its predecessor diagnoses, including soldier’s heart, railroad spine, and shell shock - was recognized as a psychiatric disorder in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The psychic impacts of train crashes, wars, and sexual shocks among children first drew psychiatric attention. Later, enormous numbers of soldiers suffering from battlefield traumas returned from the world wars. It was not until the 1980s that PTSD became a formal diagnosis, in part to recognize the intense psychic suffering of Vietnam War veterans and women with trauma-related personality disorders. PTSD now occupies a dominant place in not only the mental health professions but also major social institutions and mainstream culture, making it the signature mental disorder of the early twenty-first century.In PTSD, Allan V. Horwitz traces the fluctuations in definitions of and responses to traumatic psychic conditions. Arguing that PTSD, perhaps more than any other diagnostic category, is a lens for showing major historical changes in conceptions of mental illness, he surveys the conditions most likely to produce traumas, the results of those traumas, and how to evaluate the claims of trauma victims.Illuminating a number of central issues about psychic disturbances more generally—including the relative importance of external stressors and internal vulnerabilities in causing mental illness, the benefits and costs of mental illness labels, and the influence of gender on expressions of mental disturbance - PTSD is a compact yet comprehensive survey. The book will appeal to diverse audiences, including the educated public, students across the psychological and social sciences, and trauma victims who are interested in socio-historical approaches to their condition.

Contents:

A disorder in time

PTSD emerges

The psychic wounds of combat

Diagnosing PTSD

The return of the repressed

PTSD becomes ubiquitous

Implications.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4214-2640-4

9781421426402

OCLC:

1051003345