

Allan V. Horwitz
A comprehensive history of PTSD.
Post-traumatic stress disorder—and its predecessor diagnoses, including soldier’s heart, railroad spine, and shell shock—was recognized as a psychiatric disorder in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The psychic impacts of train crashes, wars, and sexual shocks among children first drew psychiatric attention. Later, enormous numbers of soldiers suffering from battlefield traumas returned from the world wars. It was not until the 1980s that PTSD became a formal diagnosis, in part to recognize the intense psychic suffering of Vietnam War veterans and women...
A comprehensive history of PTSD.
Post-traumatic stress disorder—and its predecessor diagnoses, including soldier’s heart, railroad spine, and shell shock—was recognized as a psychiatric disorder in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The psychic impacts of train crashes, wars, and sexual shocks among children first drew psychiatric attention. Later, enormous numbers of soldiers suffering from battlefield traumas returned from the world wars. It was not until the 1980s that PTSD became a formal diagnosis, in part to recognize the intense psychic suffering of Vietnam War veterans and women with trauma-related personality disorders. PTSD now occupies a dominant place in not only the mental health professions but also major social institutions and mainstream culture, making it the signature mental disorder of the early twenty-first century.
In PTSD, Allan V. Horwitz traces the fluctuations in definitions of and responses to traumatic psychic conditions. Arguing that PTSD, perhaps more than any other diagnostic category, is a lens for showing major historical changes in conceptions of mental illness, he surveys the conditions most likely to produce traumas, the results of those traumas, and how to evaluate the claims of trauma victims.
Illuminating a number of central issues about psychic disturbances more generally—including the relative importance of external stressors and internal vulnerabilities in causing mental illness, the benefits and costs of mental illness labels, and the influence of gender on expressions of mental disturbance—PTSD is a compact yet comprehensive survey. The book will appeal to diverse audiences, including the educated public, students across the psychological and social sciences, and trauma victims who are interested in socio-historical approaches to their condition.
Praise for Allan V. Horwitz’s Anxiety: A Short History
"The definitive overview of the history of anxiety."—Bulletin of the History of Medicine
"A lucid, erudite and brisk intellectual history driven by a clear and persuasive central argument."—Social History of Medicine
"An enlightening tour of anxiety, set at a sensible pace, with an exceptional scholar and writer leading the way."—Library Journal
Horwitz draws together an impressive array of work to produce a balanced and concise analysis of PTSD that will serve as an insightful guide to the nature and evolution of the disorder.
PTSD is an excellent survey: sharp, well-informed, probing and suitably skeptical of the epistemological status of a disorder that has become emblematic of our times. Horwitz is sympathetic to the suffering of trauma victims, but he is fully aware of the political, constructed nature of the underlying diagnosis, and the double-edged sword that it represents.
In this eminently accessible history of PTSD, Horwitz skillfully guides readers through a history of traumatic responses, seamlessly incorporating a variety of technical sources, including medical research and legal thought on compensation... PTSD is an important contribution to the field, offering a powerful interpretative and analytic framework to revisit a well-documented history of trauma.
Tracing its evolution from the mid-nineteenth century to today, Horwitz uses PTSD's distinct character as an effective wedge to open and explore deep questions regarding the relationship between culture and psychiatric diagnoses and the ways in which social, political, and economic concerns have shaped how we understand trauma. The end result is a well-written, succinct history that spins out many promising threads for future scholars to pursue. Indeed, I can think of no better introduction to PTSD. Any aspiring scholar would do well to begin her explorations into the topic here. For this reason, PTSD: A Short History takes its place among the must-reads on PTSD.
The eminent medical sociologist Allan Horwitz has written a splendid account of our evolving views of the psychiatric consequences of trauma. Ranging from the Civil War to the twenty-first century, Horwitz's gripping narrative documents how history and culture have shaped PTSD as much as biology has.
Since its emergence as a mental health disorder in the 1960s, PTSD has expanded to become a diagnosis for a wide range of trauma-related problems. In this penetrating book, Allan Horwitz explores the social origins and consequences of PTSD, shining a new light on the relation of external stressors and internal vulnerabilities.
This seminal work by Allan Horwitz provides a historical review of the controversies that preceeded psychiatry's modern day diagnosis of PTSD. In the context of sociocultural forces and timeless controversies, Horwitz brings to light the 'construction' and 'contentious history' of PTSD. Every professional who works in the field of posttraumatic stress studies and every interested layperson will benefit from reading this riveting book.
Trauma is a recent notion whose complex history culminated at the end of the twentieth century with its translation into psychiatric nosography as PTSD. In this comprehensive biography of the new clinical category, Allan Horwitz powerfully shows how it came to be an ambiguous signature of our time, between science and victimhood.
Foreword, by Charles E. Rosenberg
Preface
Chapter 1. A Disorder through Time 1
Chapter 2. PTSD Emerges
Chapter 3. The Psychic Wounds of Combat
Chapter 4. Diagnosing PTSD
Chapter 5. The Return of the
Foreword, by Charles E. Rosenberg
Preface
Chapter 1. A Disorder through Time 1
Chapter 2. PTSD Emerges
Chapter 3. The Psychic Wounds of Combat
Chapter 4. Diagnosing PTSD
Chapter 5. The Return of the Repressed
Chapter 6. PTSD Becomes Ubiquitous
Chapter 7. Implications
Notes
Index
with Hopkins Press Books