Shell shock and trauma: a most unmanly injury
Before the tragic events of
the First World War, scarce
advancements had been made in
the field of medical psychiatry. Both men
and women suffering from mental illness
would typically be institutionalized and given
physically harmful treatments.
In what was then a staunchly patriarchal world, women were more likely to be subjected to misdiagnoses and stigmatization simply for resisting cultural norms. When men returned from the Front exhibiting what we now know to be the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychiatrists were forced to confront their inexperience with mental illness in men by applying what little knowledge they had.
The events of the Great Wars generated study and discourse in an otherwise dark field, and many developments have been made today. However, in light of the 54 Canadian veterans who have committed suicide since their return from Afghanistan, it is important to understand how social stereotypes have contributed, and perhaps even still contribute, to misunderstandings of PTSD today. While the concept has been recently specified to the more medically accurate and less generalized description “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”, “shell shock” was first coined by English physician Charles S. Meyers in 1915.
During his time volunteering for the Royal Military Army Corporation in France, Meyers initially connected the physical symptoms of several solders’ mental breakdowns to the chemical effects of a close-range shell explosion.
Use of the term became widely popular for the remainder of the Great War’s duration, yet Meyers would eventually admit that the phrase was in actuality a medical misnomer due to the overwhelming number of men who exhibited the same symptoms of psychological stress without ever having encountered exploding shells.
The term therefore became controversial, and by the end of the war was banned by the British medical community as a misleading appellation for what was in truth symptoms of hysteria in men. Regardless, “shell shocked” continued to function in mainstream social language as a label for the psychologically injured soldier.
Hysteria in men was a relatively uncharted condition in male soldiers at the time, before the First World War, the term “hysterical” was reserved by both the medical community and Western society at large to describe what was assumed to be the mentally unsound woman. Meyers was at a loss to properly diagnose this formerly unacknowledged condition in his male patients.
Because of this, feminist literary critic Elaine Showalter made the case in 1985’s The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture that psychiatrists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were generally in denial that men could suffer from the same psychological illness that had been aligned so exclusively to what was woefully considered to be the weaker feminine sex.
According to Showalter, “The psychiatric theories which developed around shell shock reflect the ambivalence of the medical establishment upon being faced with the unexpected phenomenon of wholesale mental breakdowns among men … when confronted with hysterical soldiers who displayed unmanly emotions or fears … psychiatrists desperately sought explanations for their condition in food poisoning, noise or ‘toxic conditions of the blood.’”
Essentially, theorists like Showalter argued that the notions derived from overall attitudes towards masculinity shaped the understanding and treatment of psychological distress in men during the First World War.
Soldiers were more often diagnosed with symptoms of hysteria than officers, who were conversely diagnosed with the symptoms of neurasthenia, which included nightmares, depression, disorientation, etc.
Because officers faced stronger pressures than their subordinates to repress emotions and attune themselves to the British ideals of masculine stoicism, doctors were reluctant to deem fellow members of the upper classes as hysterical.
However, both soldiers and officers who had been diagnosed with hysteria and war neurosis were more likely to be treated socially and medically with disciplinary measures and shaming.
Observable displays of fearfulness, physical shaking or crying were considered signs of simplicity, passivity and weakness.
The mythical image of the calm, quiet and brave officer who took his duty in stride was an image that upheld the tenets of recognizable gender conventions, and it was this image that was purported back home via propaganda to those who did not see the realities of the war for themselves.
Male soldiers were expected to perform their gruesome tasks in accordance with traditional assumptions of masculine strength. Doctors and society saw those who defied these assumptions under the burden of war trauma as womanly, weak-willed, childish or even predisposed to mental illness.
When Corporal Charles Benjamin Fairley returned to civilian life after having enlisted in 1915, he became the first Canadian solider to be diagnosed with shell shock.
He would be the first among 10,000 Canadians whose conditions would be treated with Freudian talk therapy, and in extreme cases, electroshock therapy on the nerves, vocal chords and limbs.
After treatment, two-thirds of those men would be forced to return to the Front. With only pre-war social convention to fall back on, doctors were unprepared to properly grasp the full effect of trauma on the human mind.
Unfortunately, the total scope of PTSD is still subconsciously preceded by relatively archaic social stereotypes in our current cultural view.
Despite a new section on trauma related disorders having been entered into the fifth Diagnostic Statistic Manual, most veterans must wait long periods of time for the Canadian Army to officially recognize their psychological injury as a service related malady.
According to Fanshawe Psychology instructor, Dr. Kathleen Dindoff, PTSD has been overlooked for many years in first responder professions, and the time that sufferers go without treatment usually has an adverse effect on their ability to live a normal life.
“There’s a lot of instability,” Dr. Dindoff said. “Symptoms range from the breakdown of relationships, flashbacks, depression and anxiety. The big thing is that people can’t put their trauma in the past. There are societal messages that this is not appropriate, this is a sign of weakness. It’s so easy to say ‘suck it up, be a man,’ or ‘get over it’. We need to think of this not as a medical disorder or disease, but really a natural response.”
On Nov. 11, Canadians will pause for two minutes at the 11th hour to remember the fallen and all those affected by the horrors of war, including the men and women who suffered and still suffer from injuries, both physical and psychological. As we depart from those moments, we will hopefully be able to leave behind dated ideologies and go forward with the knowledge that mental anguish is never gendered.
In what was then a staunchly patriarchal world, women were more likely to be subjected to misdiagnoses and stigmatization simply for resisting cultural norms. When men returned from the Front exhibiting what we now know to be the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychiatrists were forced to confront their inexperience with mental illness in men by applying what little knowledge they had.
The events of the Great Wars generated study and discourse in an otherwise dark field, and many developments have been made today. However, in light of the 54 Canadian veterans who have committed suicide since their return from Afghanistan, it is important to understand how social stereotypes have contributed, and perhaps even still contribute, to misunderstandings of PTSD today. While the concept has been recently specified to the more medically accurate and less generalized description “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”, “shell shock” was first coined by English physician Charles S. Meyers in 1915.
During his time volunteering for the Royal Military Army Corporation in France, Meyers initially connected the physical symptoms of several solders’ mental breakdowns to the chemical effects of a close-range shell explosion.
Use of the term became widely popular for the remainder of the Great War’s duration, yet Meyers would eventually admit that the phrase was in actuality a medical misnomer due to the overwhelming number of men who exhibited the same symptoms of psychological stress without ever having encountered exploding shells.
The term therefore became controversial, and by the end of the war was banned by the British medical community as a misleading appellation for what was in truth symptoms of hysteria in men. Regardless, “shell shocked” continued to function in mainstream social language as a label for the psychologically injured soldier.
Hysteria in men was a relatively uncharted condition in male soldiers at the time, before the First World War, the term “hysterical” was reserved by both the medical community and Western society at large to describe what was assumed to be the mentally unsound woman. Meyers was at a loss to properly diagnose this formerly unacknowledged condition in his male patients.
Because of this, feminist literary critic Elaine Showalter made the case in 1985’s The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture that psychiatrists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were generally in denial that men could suffer from the same psychological illness that had been aligned so exclusively to what was woefully considered to be the weaker feminine sex.
According to Showalter, “The psychiatric theories which developed around shell shock reflect the ambivalence of the medical establishment upon being faced with the unexpected phenomenon of wholesale mental breakdowns among men … when confronted with hysterical soldiers who displayed unmanly emotions or fears … psychiatrists desperately sought explanations for their condition in food poisoning, noise or ‘toxic conditions of the blood.’”
Essentially, theorists like Showalter argued that the notions derived from overall attitudes towards masculinity shaped the understanding and treatment of psychological distress in men during the First World War.
Soldiers were more often diagnosed with symptoms of hysteria than officers, who were conversely diagnosed with the symptoms of neurasthenia, which included nightmares, depression, disorientation, etc.
Because officers faced stronger pressures than their subordinates to repress emotions and attune themselves to the British ideals of masculine stoicism, doctors were reluctant to deem fellow members of the upper classes as hysterical.
However, both soldiers and officers who had been diagnosed with hysteria and war neurosis were more likely to be treated socially and medically with disciplinary measures and shaming.
Observable displays of fearfulness, physical shaking or crying were considered signs of simplicity, passivity and weakness.
The mythical image of the calm, quiet and brave officer who took his duty in stride was an image that upheld the tenets of recognizable gender conventions, and it was this image that was purported back home via propaganda to those who did not see the realities of the war for themselves.
Male soldiers were expected to perform their gruesome tasks in accordance with traditional assumptions of masculine strength. Doctors and society saw those who defied these assumptions under the burden of war trauma as womanly, weak-willed, childish or even predisposed to mental illness.
When Corporal Charles Benjamin Fairley returned to civilian life after having enlisted in 1915, he became the first Canadian solider to be diagnosed with shell shock.
He would be the first among 10,000 Canadians whose conditions would be treated with Freudian talk therapy, and in extreme cases, electroshock therapy on the nerves, vocal chords and limbs.
After treatment, two-thirds of those men would be forced to return to the Front. With only pre-war social convention to fall back on, doctors were unprepared to properly grasp the full effect of trauma on the human mind.
Unfortunately, the total scope of PTSD is still subconsciously preceded by relatively archaic social stereotypes in our current cultural view.
Despite a new section on trauma related disorders having been entered into the fifth Diagnostic Statistic Manual, most veterans must wait long periods of time for the Canadian Army to officially recognize their psychological injury as a service related malady.
According to Fanshawe Psychology instructor, Dr. Kathleen Dindoff, PTSD has been overlooked for many years in first responder professions, and the time that sufferers go without treatment usually has an adverse effect on their ability to live a normal life.
“There’s a lot of instability,” Dr. Dindoff said. “Symptoms range from the breakdown of relationships, flashbacks, depression and anxiety. The big thing is that people can’t put their trauma in the past. There are societal messages that this is not appropriate, this is a sign of weakness. It’s so easy to say ‘suck it up, be a man,’ or ‘get over it’. We need to think of this not as a medical disorder or disease, but really a natural response.”
On Nov. 11, Canadians will pause for two minutes at the 11th hour to remember the fallen and all those affected by the horrors of war, including the men and women who suffered and still suffer from injuries, both physical and psychological. As we depart from those moments, we will hopefully be able to leave behind dated ideologies and go forward with the knowledge that mental anguish is never gendered.
