Shell shock

“If we define shell shock as everything constituted by wartime understandings of the term, we propose to write a history of something which is not, or is not just, psychological ‘trauma.’ This shell shock is related to ‘war trauma’ . . . but the two are not synonymous. Viewing shell shock simply as one name for a universal psychological reaction to warfare leaves out too much. During the war, shell shock was understood in many different ways: as a psychological reaction to war, as a type of concussion, or as a physiological response to prolonged fear. . . . The ‘historical’ definition of shell shock, on the other hand, takes the etiological ambiguity of the disorder as its defining feature, and follows through all the consequences of this change in subject matter” (Loughran, 14-15).