Trauma-Induced Dissociative Amnesia in World War I Combat Soldiers

1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Onno van der Hart ◽  
Paul Brown ◽  
Mariëtte Graafland
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
World War I ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
War Trauma ◽  
Combat Trauma ◽  
World War ◽  
Dissociative Amnesia ◽  
Traumatic Amnesia ◽  
Post Traumatic

Objective: This study relates trauma-induced dissociative amnesia reported in World War I (WW I) studies of war trauma to contemporary findings of dissociative amnesia in victims of childhood sexual abuse. Method: Key diagnostic studies of post-traumatic amnesia in WW I combatants are surveyed. These cover phenomenology and the psychological dynamics of dissociation vis-à-vis repression. Results: Descriptive evidence is cited for war trauma-induced dissociative amnesia. Conclusion: Posttraumatic amnesia extends beyond the experience of sexual and combat trauma and is a protean symptom, which reflects responses to the gamut of traumatic events.

Trauma-Induced Dissociative Amnesia in World War I Combat Soldiers. II. Treatment Dimensions

1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 392-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Brown ◽  
Onno van der Hart ◽  
Mariétte Graafland
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
World War I ◽  
Treatment Approach ◽  
Cognitive Integration ◽  
World War ◽  
Traumatic Memories ◽  
Posttraumatic Amnesia ◽  
Dissociative Amnesia ◽  
Civilian Trauma ◽  
Diagnostic Validation

Objective: This is the second part of a study of posttraumatic amnesia in World War I (WW I) soldiers. It moves beyond diagnostic validation of posttraumatic amnesia (PTA), to examine treatment findings, and relates these to contemporary treatment of dissociative amnesia, including treatment of victims of civilian trauma (e.g. childhood sexual abuse). Method: Key WW I studies are surveyed which focus on the treatment of PTA and traumatic memories. The dissociation-integration and repression-abreaction models are contrasted. Results: Descriptive evidence is cited in support of preferring Myers' and McDougalls' dissociation-integration treatment approach over Brown's repression-abreaction model. Conclusion: Therapeutic findings in this paper complement diagnostic data from the first report. Although effective treatment includes elements of both the dissociative-integrative and abreactive treatment approaches, cognitive integration of dissociated traumatic memories and personality functions is primary, while emotional release is secondary.

War, Trauma, Displacement, Diaspora

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuire Valkeakari
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
War Trauma ◽  
World War ◽  
Middle Passage ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Modern Warfare ◽  
Diasporic Subjectivity

This chapter examines Toni Morrison’s and Caryl Phillips’s portraits of African American troops in World War I, World War II, and Vietnam. These authors’ stories of African American soldiers and veterans bring together two topic areas that may, at first glance, seem to have little to do with each other: war and diaspora. This chapter interrogates the complex relationship between diasporic subjectivity and national citizenship. Utilizing Caruthian trauma theory, it reveals how Morrison, in Sulaand Tar Baby, and Phillips, in Crossing the River, subtly link their narratives of temporary traumatic displacement on foreign battlefields with the historical ur-trauma of diasporic dislocation. In these novels, the wounds that the Middle Passage and slavery inflicted on black diasporic bodies and psyches metaphorically bleed into, and coalesce with, traumas and post-traumatic conditions resulting from black participation in modern warfare—participation that both Morrison and Phillips depict in terms of young black men being sent abroad to fight destructive and traumatizing wars that are not theirs to fight. The literal and metaphorical connections that Morrison and Phillips forge between war and diaspora in various ways call attention to the greed and large-scale violence that have all too often accompanied the Western project of modernity.

Post-traumatic Stress

2018 ◽  
pp. 299-304
Author(s):  
S. Nassir Ghaemi
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
War Trauma ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Shell Shock ◽  
War Neurosis ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Radical Revision

The concept of trauma has been a central feature of psychiatry and psychology ever since a century ago, when a Viennese neurologist concluded that many of his young female patients with hysteria had experienced childhood sexual abuse. The concept of trauma soon was extended to adults, mainly soldiers. “Hysteria,” “shell shock,” “war neurosis”—it all became mutated in DSM-III’s radical revision of 1980 into “post-traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD). In this chapter, the diagnosis and treatment of post-traumatic stress are explored. DSM-based diagnoses are viewed as broad, and overly oriented toward comorbidity. Instead, PTSD-like symptoms occur as part of the typical stressors that trigger mood or psychotic states. True PTSD can occur with severe trauma, as in childhood sexual abuse or war trauma. Symptomatic treatment is seen to be questionable in benefit over risk, both for antipsychotics and for SRIs.

Did Freud Mislead Patients to Confabulate Memories of Abuse? A Reply to Gleaves and Hernandez (1999)

2004 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 863-877 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell A. Powell ◽  
Douglas P. Boer
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
False Memories ◽  
Recovered Memories

Gleaves and Hernandez have argued that skepticism about the validity of Freud's seduction theory, including by Powell and Boer, is largely unjustified. This paper contends that their analysis is in many ways both inaccurate and misleading. For example, we did not, as they implied, reject the possibility that some of Freud's early patients were victims of childhood sexual abuse. We also maintain that the weight of the available evidence indicates that false memories of traumatic events probably can be implanted, and that Freud's (1896/1962a) original evidence for the validity of his patients' recovered memories remains lacking in several respects—particularly in view of the extremely suggestive procedures he often used to elicit such memories.

“The Absurd Disordering of Notes”

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth Keyes
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
World War ◽  
Psychic Trauma ◽  
Shell Shock ◽  
Medical Reform ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Post Traumatic

Railway spine, nerve prostration, combat neurosis, post-traumatic stress disorder: throughout the twentieth century, a complex array of terms has been codified by cultural, national, and medical institutions to describe a body and mind made dysfunctional by the inability to process intensely disturbing memories. In the wake of World War I, trauma-induced mental illness—diagnosed and treated as “shell-shock” in countless veterans—became an imperative focal point for sociopolitical and medical reform throughout Europe. This essay explores the connections between this historically contextualized psychiatric disorder and the music of Ivor Gurney, a soldier in the British Army whose life and work was significantly affected by his diagnosis in 1918. Through particular disturbances of form, structure, and texture, Gurney’s musical landscapes reenact the conditions of psychic trauma by creating a world in which memories are disruptive, invasive, and ultimately disabling.

The Dark Cartoon: Intrusive Imagery Secondary to Childhood Sexual Abuse

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-175
Author(s):  
Yoshihiro Katsuura ◽  
Vincent Russell
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
History Of Childhood ◽  
Aged Woman ◽  
Middle Aged Woman ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Intrusive Imagery ◽  
State Examination

AbstractWe report on the case of a middle-aged woman with a complex psychiatric history in whom atypical intrusive imagery identified in the mental status examination appeared to represent an emergence of childhood dissociative phenomena. These new symptoms led to the reappraisal of her clinical presentation and a diagnostic re-evaluation that they represented a re-emergence of childhood post-traumatic stress disorder secondary to sexual abuse. We discuss the phenomenology identified in our patient with the aim of increasing awareness of unusual symptoms in adults with a history of childhood sexual abuse and the importance of the mental state examination in eliciting and classifying such phenomena.

scholarly journals WAR TRAUMA IN THE CONTEMPORARY SERBIAN NOVEL: THE HOUSE OF REMEMBRANCE AND OBLIVIONBY FILIP DAVID, THE DELUSION OF ST. SEBASTIANBY VLADIMIR TABAŠEVIĆ, THE DOG AND THE DOUBLE BASSBY SAŠA ILIĆ

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 278-300
Author(s):  
Miloš Živković ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Psychiatric Treatment ◽  
Double Bass ◽  
War Trauma ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Post Traumatic

The paper discusses the literary shaping of war traumas in the novels “The House of Remembrance and Oblivion” by Filip David, “The Delusion of St. Sebastian” by Vladimir Tabašević and “The Dog and the Double Bass” by Saša Ilić. The manner in which the Holocaust influences the life of Albert Weiss and the lives of other characters, decades after World War II, and the mystical contemplation of the meaning of evil stand out as the most important themes of David’s novel. The interpretation of “The Delusion of St. Sebastian” proceeds via the protagonist Karl and his attitude to the language he learned during the war. The war induces dissociative identity disorder, the protagonist’s adoption and subsequent overcoming of the victim’s position. The analysis of Ilić’s work focuses on the protagonist of the novel “The Dog and the Double Bass”, Filip Isaković, and his post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as psychiatric and anti-psychiatric treatment methods.

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