BBC Schools - Life in the trenches 31 October 2014Last updated at 15:07 Two British soldiers standing in a flooded communication trench during World War One On the Western Front, the war was fought in trenches. Trenches were long, narrow ditches dug into the ground where soldiers lived all day and night. There were many lines of German trenches on one side and many lines of Allied trenches on the other. In the middle, was no man's land, so-called because it did not belong to either army. Rest Soldiers in the trenches did not get much sleep. Dirty trenches The trenches could be very muddy and smelly.
9/8/14: Forgotten Female Shell-Shock Victims of World War I The psychologist Dr. Charles S. Myers coined the term shell shock in an article for The Lancet in February 1915, after seeing a number of cases of mental distress in soldiers who experienced shells bursting near them at close range. Yet Myers quickly realized that many of the men exhibiting similar symptoms “had never been near an exploding shell, had not been under fire for months, or had never come under fire at all.” He admitted shell shock was “a singularly ill-chosen term,” and the British medical community quickly suggested "war neuroses" instead. But the public had already latched onto the memorable alliteration, and “shell shock" has remained in popular discourse ever since. Though a misnomer, historians have argued that shell shock provided a convenient way for doctors to separate the mental traumas exhibited by soldiers from the "effeminate associations of ‘hysteria.'”
BBC Schools - Trench food 18 February 2014Last updated at 17:06 British soldiers eating hot rations in the Ancre Valley during the Battle of the Somme, October 1916 Maconochie's meat stew advertisement Even though food was very short in Britain during World War One, families often sent parcels to their fathers and brothers fighting at the front. At the beginning of the war, soldiers got just over one pound of meat, the same amount in bread and eight ounces of vegetables each day. Some soldiers worked in field kitchens which were set up just behind the trenches to cook meals for the soldiers who were fighting. By 1917 the official ration for the average British 'Tommy' was much smaller. 'Maconchie's meat stew' and hard biscuits was a meal that many soldiers ate. 18 February 2014Last updated at 17:06 British soldiers eating hot rations in the Ancre Valley during the Battle of the Somme, October 1916 Maconochie's meat stew advertisement By 1917 the official ration for the average British 'Tommy' was much smaller.
What is C-PTSD? Why does c-ptsd exist? Complex PTSD comes in response to chronic traumatization over the course of months or, more often, years. This can include emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuses, domestic violence, living in a war zone, being held captive, human trafficking and other organized rings of abuse, and more. While there are exceptional circumstances where adults develop C-PTSD, it is most often seen in those whose trauma occurred in childhood. When an adult experiences a traumatic event, they have more tools to understand what is happening to them, their place as a victim of that trauma, and know they should seek support even if they don't want to. Another important thing to know is that the trauma to children resulting in C-PTSD (as well as dissociative disorders) is usually deeply interpersonal within that child's caregiving system. What does c-ptsd look like? Interruptions in consciousness are also a prevalent - and at times very scary - reality in Complex PTSD.
The Great War Archive (University of Oxford) Dec 25. The Christmas Truce Sergeant Bernard Brookes was a signaller who spent ten months in Flanders in the beginning of the War before he suffered shellshock and was invalided out of active service. During his convalescence he wrote up the notes he had made during his service, giving a personal, unsentimental account of the appalling conditions in the trenches as well as humorous exploits on and off duty.Here are two short extracts relating to the famous Christmas Truce 1914: 24 December 1914: "An officer went out (after we had stood at our posts with rifles loaded in case of treachery) and arrangements were made that between 10.00am and noon, and from 2.00pm to 4.00pm tomorrow, intercourse between the Germs [sic] and ourselves should take place. You can read more of Sergeant Bernard Brookes’s story on the Europeana 1914-1918 site.
7/17/18: Improving Therapeutic Options for Patients With PTSD New medications continually emerge for a variety of diseases and disorders, but medications to treat patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have remained stagnant for decades. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as fluoxetine (Prozac, Eli Lilly), sertraline (Zoloft, Pfizer), and paroxetine (Paxil, GlaxoSmithKline) have dominated the market for the past 20 to 30 years and have remained the customary therapies for patients with PTSD, according to New York City-based psychiatrist Gauri Khurana, MD, MPH. “I think there are other medications to treat [PTSD] that are effective, and for some reason, this isn’t galvanizing a lot of research interest,” Khurana told MD Mag. “The bigger moneymakers are in [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder] or antipsychotics.” Despite a general lack of research into new treatments for PTSD, the disorder has a significant and widespread impact. Tried and True? Newcomer Treatments in Trials
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive The First World War Poetry Digital Archive is an online repository of over 7000 items of text, images, audio, and video for teaching, learning, and research. The heart of the archive consists of collections of highly valued primary material from major poets of the period, including Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, and Edward Thomas. This is supplemented by a comprehensive range of multimedia artefacts from the Imperial War Museum, a separate archive of over 6,500 items contributed by the general public, and a set of specially developed educational resources. Freely available to the public as well as the educational community, the First World War Poetry Digital Archive is a significant resource for studying the First World War and the literature it inspired. The Great War Archive was highly commended at the Times Higher Educational Awards 2008 for 'Outstanding ICT Initiative'
11/13/19: PTSD - the current picture Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common and often disabling mental condition characterised by re-experiencing, avoidance and hyperarousal phenomena. In contrast with the ICD-11 classification system, DSM-5 also requires negative alterations in cognition and mood associated with the traumatic event for diagnosis of PTSD. ICD-11 has created a new parallel diagnosis of complex PTSD for people with the symptoms of PTSD plus disturbances in self organisation (emotional regulation difficulties, negative self-concept and interpersonal relationship difficulties). The point prevalence of PTSD in the general population has been estimated at around 3% with individuals exposed to very severe and/or multiple traumatic experiences being at particularly heightened risk of suffering from PTSD. Methods Unusually, there is no stated methodology for this work. Results The paper covers many different areas and it is a challenge to adequately summarise the results. Conclusions #ISTSS2019 podcast Links