Latest posts
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The Emergence of PTSD: From Post-Vietnam Syndrome to DSM Recognition
In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association formally recognized Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a psychiatric diagnosis in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). This landmark shift legitimized trauma as a cause of persistent mental health symptoms (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1980). This inclusion was driven by multidisciplinary research…
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Trauma as a Discrete External Event: War Neuroses and the Rise of PTSD
In the early-to-mid-20th century, the prevailing view of trauma shifted toward seeing it as a response to discrete external events, particularly the horrors of war and other large-scale catastrophes. While psychoanalysts during the interwar period gave limited attention to real-life trauma, military psychiatrists observed acute psychological breakdowns among soldiers that could not be ignored. World…
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History and Conceptual Development of Psychotraumatology
Early Foundations: Trauma as an “Unconscious” Phenomenon (Charcot, Janet, Freud) Modern Psychotraumatology has its roots in late 19th-century clinical observations of hysteria and psychological shock. In the 1880s, Jean-Martin Charcot and his student Pierre Janet in France were among the first to investigate how traumatic experiences could lead to psychological symptoms systematically. Charcot observed “traumatic…