I mean war always has been a part of our life since the first civilizations was established. I’m sure “shellshock” wasn’t only caused by artilery shots.
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Psychologist here. There is a huge psychological difference between fire weapons and swords etc. Trauma means you perceive a situation as life threatening (for you or others). At the same time you can’t do anything about it. Our primal instincts make us show a fight, flight or freeze reaction.
In a sword fight you usually fight back. You have a way to influence the outcome of the situation. You can’t fight back on a bomb or a gun. You are helpless. So you can’t run away or fight, running away might be even more dangerous because you might be seen and shot. So you freeze. People staid in that position for several days. Traumatic experiences have an impact on your primal parts of the brain because it’s important for evolution to be able to react on life threatening situations (brain function is a lot more complicated of course). So the traumatic event goes on and on and on and people stopped working normally and shut down to work on that freeze instinct. In a sword fight you keep moving. Movement (sports etc. after a traumatic event seems to be a huge protective factor against ptsd by the way).
Shellshock is not ptsd, its an acute reaction to trauma. Peoples brains needed time to and different stimulation to be able to to function normally again. A situation that couldn’t be influenced and felt like it could not be ended suddenly ended.
PTSD is more likely to occur if a traumatic event lasts longer, you perceive yourself as defeatless, the time an event lasts and the more ‘ dangerous’ it is ( e.g. being raped when the raping person has a gun is more likely to lead to ptsd than without a gun, depending on the perception of the raped person as threatening). So PTSD was a lot more often in WW one and two than in wars before.
Sorry for my English, I’m not native
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