When will society recognize PTSD among survivors of domestic
violence? Let’s look at how the world learned about PTSD and
related disorders. Post-traumatic stress disorder is one of a
group of similar conditions, known variously through history as
shell shock, soldier’s heart, combat stress reaction, and so
forth. Trauma became much easier to spot and discuss in the 19th
century, when technology made warfare much more dangerous and
traumatic to soldiers. The American Civil War introduced the
combat model of large numbers of soldiers armed with rifles,
firing out in the open. As a result, there were staggering
combat casualties. Once the troops began to see the incredible
body counts in the battles, psychological trauma skyrocketed –
in fact it was the second-most common diagnosis by battlefield
doctors. Psychiatry was still barely in its infancy back then,
and the doctors didn’t even have the vocabulary to describe
psychological trauma, to say nothing of actually treating it.
Although the science wasn’t movin