Shell Shock Research Paper

Do you know what people mean when they refer to the term “The War to End All Wars”? “The War to End All Wars” refers to the First World War, which is known as World War I. World War I was between the Central Powers and the Allies. The War began on July 28, 1914 and ended on November 11, 1918. During the war, the soldiers that were involved began to discover symptoms of a mental illness that came to be known as “shell-shock”. The soldiers’ states of mind were often traumatized by the constant explosions and horrifying sights of the different battles. These horrifying images caused them to have lifelong nightmares of the war. As one scholarly author says, “It is generally accepted that shell shock was an early variation of the contemporary term

“Shell-Shock” took the British Army by surprise, because they were not expecting the soldiers to have a negative side effect because of the war. Not only did “shell-shock” affect the troops that were involved in World War I, but it also affected the nurses that cared for the troops. When “shell-shock” came to be, the doctors were unaware of how to treat it. Doctors had formed theories from soldier’s symptoms that it might have been a concussion, or unnoticeable damage to the nervous system from the exposure of the repeated shell blasts (Jones 250). However, as the war went on, doctors began to see “shell-shock” as a psychological matter (Jones 250). It was believed that “shell-shock” occurred after a physical shock to the brain, which usually was to the front lobe, which then resulted in lesions of different sizes affecting the brain (Rae 268). After the doctors studied the disease and “shell-shock” began to strike the soldiers drastically, the British Army appointed Charles S. Myers (a medically trained psychologist) to consult the cases of soldiers that were experiencing “shell-shock” (Jones 1). Myers described the first cases he consulted as “perceptual abnormalities” (Jones 1). Myers noticed the symptoms the soldiers were experiencing were symptoms of repressed trauma such as: “loss of or impaired hearing, sight, sensation, tremor, loss of balance, headaches, and fatigue” (Jones