Question

In your own words (500-750) do WW1 veterans suffer drastically from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, if so how well do they cope with it?

Answer 1

Many soldiers who returned from WW1 was wounded not physically but psychologically showing symptoms of irrational fear, shivering some showed behavior of crying, many had drastic memory impairment etc.
Charles Myers in 1915 described all these symptoms under a term shell shock. He theorised that these symptoms have occurred due to physical injuries that combined with the weakness of the individual.
Later, many cases were found where no physical injury was accompanied with symptoms thus Myers theory was discarded. However, it gave a thrust to describe Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Certainly, veterans of world war 1 suffered from PTSD. Terms such as missing soldier, living but lost soldiers etc were terms used for those having PTSD. It was the first time that such kind of scenario came to the limelight on such a larger scale. Later, led to the development of Military Psychology which will help reduce PTSD occurrence in wars and conflict by selecting the individual with no or less predisposition and providing appropriate training.

Those suffered from PTSD in WW1 did not have resources and medical and psychological help at their disposal. So they relied on family and friends initially. Governments also provided counseling and other support to help them cope with such disorders.
Moreover, with the passage of time symptoms weakened and individuals could gain more control over themselves and that helped in reducing the stress to a larger extent.
Later on researches in the field of psycholgy has developed many therapies and medication such as cognitive behavior therapy, Rational-emotive therapy, and psychodynamic therapy etc that was very specific and accurate in dealing with PTSD of war veterans and provided them a happy life at later stages of life.
At the same time, there were many veterans who suffered lifelong trauma and could not alleviate their problem.