Is It Really Trauma?
How we define our experiences changes what we experience. The same is true of trauma.
In 1914, during World War I, British physicians treating combat veterans found that many of them were experiencing psychological disturbances following their experiences in the war: symptoms like amnesia, loss of vision, tremors or hypersensitivity to sounds. The soldiers were diagnosed with “shell shock,” as physicians believed the shock of artillery shell explosions had a pivotal role in causing the condition.
In 1066, following the Battle of Hastings, the Bishops of Normandy created the Ermenfrid Penitential, a protocol for veterans to follow according to what acts of violence they committed in battle designed to cleanse them of the “moral injury” they suffered from their experiences in war.
In 490 BCE, during the Battle of Marathon, Herodotus wrote of a fellow Athenian soldier who became “stricken with blindness” after witnessing the death of his comrade.
In 1300 BCE, soldiers in Mesopotamia told of being “haunted by the ghosts” of those they killed in battle.
Now, you might be thinking, “These all sound like historical versions of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), before we had that term.” Certainly, the term “shell shock” is typically included in…
