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The thousand-yard stare is sometimes described as an effect of shell shock or combat stress reaction, along with other mental health conditions. However, it is not a formal medical term . [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]
The treatment of chronic shell shock varied widely according to the details of the symptoms, the views of the doctors involved, and other factors including the rank and class of the patient. There were so many officers and men with shell shock that 19 British military hospitals were wholly devoted to the treatment of cases.
Before the term post-traumatic stress disorder was established, people that exhibited symptoms were said to have shell shock [6] [5] [2] [3] or war neuroses. [8] [3] [9] This terminology came about in WWI when a commonality among combat soldiers was identified during psychiatric evaluations. [3]
It is historically linked to shell shock and can sometimes precurse post-traumatic stress disorder. Combat stress reaction is an acute reaction that includes a range of behaviors resulting from the stress of battle that decrease the combatant's fighting efficiency.
During the world wars, the condition was known under various terms, including 'shell shock', 'war nerves', neurasthenia and 'combat neurosis'. [24] [25] The term "post-traumatic stress disorder" came into use in the 1970s, in large part due to the diagnoses of U.S. military veterans of the Vietnam War. [26]
Despite this, "shell shock" remained in the popular vocabulary. But the symptoms of what constituted combat fatigue were broader than what had constituted shell shock in World War I. By the time of the invasion of Sicily, the U.S. Army was initially classifying all psychological casualties as "exhaustion" which many still called shell shock. [8]
Shell shock or war neurosis are forms of hysteria that manifested in soldiers during war time, especially World War I. Symptoms that were previously considered somatic were reconsidered in a new light; trembling, paralysis, nightmares, mutism and apathy were grouped together in a broad spectrum psychological disorder known as "war neurosis".
Charles Samuel Myers, CBE, FRS [1] (13 March 1873 – 12 October 1946) was an English physician who worked as a psychologist.Although he did not invent the term, his first academic paper, published by The Lancet in 1915, concerned shell shock.