Providing knowledge of the stress environmentSoldiers with a knowledge of both the emotional and physical signs and symptoms of CSR are much less likely to have a critical event that reduces them below fighting capability. Instrumental information, such as breathing exercises that can reduce stress and suggestions not to look at the faces of enemy dead, is also effective at reducing the chance of a breakdown. Skills acquisitionCognitive control strategies can be taught to soldiers to help them recognize stressful and situationally detrimental thoughts and repress those thoughts in combat situations. Such skills have been shown to reduce anxiety and improve task performance. Confidence building through application and practiceSoldiers who feel confident in their own abilities and those of their squad are far less likely to develop combat stress reaction. Training in stressful conditions that mimic those of an actual combat situation builds confidence in the abilities of themselves and the squad. As this training can actually induce some of the stress symptoms it seeks to prevent, stress levels should be increased incrementally as to allow the soldiers time to adapt. Prognosis
Figures from the 1982 Lebanon war showed that with proximal treatment, 90% of CSR casualties returned to their unit, usually within 72 hours. With rearward treatment, only 40% returned to their unit. It was also found that treatment efficacy went up with the application of a variety of front line treatment principles versus just one treatment.
Proponents of the PIE and BICEPS principles argue that it leads to a reduction of long-term disability but opponents argue that combat stress reactions lead to long-term problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder. The use of psychiatric drugs to treat people with CSR has also attracted criticism, as some military psychiatrists have come to question the efficacy of such drugs on the long-term health of veterans. Concerns have been expressed as to the effect of pharmaceutical treatment on an already elevated substance abuse rate among former people with CSR.Recent research has caused an increasing number of scientists to believe that there may be a physical (i.e., neurocerebral damage) rather than psychological basis for blast trauma. As traumatic brain injury and combat stress reaction have very different causes yet result in similar neurologic symptoms, researchers emphasize the need for greater diagnostic care. See also
Acute stress disorder
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (modern treatment)
Lack of Moral Fibre
Shell shock
Social alienation – among returning war veterans

References
Further reading
West, Rebecca (1918). The Return of the Soldier. Garden City, NY: Garden City Pub. Co.
Woolf, Virginia (1925). Mrs Dalloway. Barker, Pat (1991). Regeneration. Dutton. ISBN 978-0525934271. Holden, Wendy (1998). Shell Shock. (Channel 4 Books). Grabenhorst, Georg (1928). Zero Hour. Roth, Joseph (1924). Die Rebellion. A Review on the Disarm Doctumentary
Corns, Cathryn and Hughes-Wilson, John (2001) Blindfold and Alone – British Military Executions in the Great War (Cassell)
Lamprecht, Friedhelm and Sack, Martin, "Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Revisited"
Dispatches: Lessons learned for Soldiers; Stress Injury and Operational Deployments, The Army Lessons Learned Centre, Canadian Forces Base Kingston, Vol.