From 'soldier's heart' to 'Vietnam syndrome': psychiatry’s 100-year quest to understand PTSD

March 9, 2015

 

In 1862, an American Civil War surgeon noted casualties were suffering from “irritable and exhausted soldier’s hearts.” But, as Jeffrey Lieberman reveals in this excerpt from Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry, it took more than 100 years, two global conflicts and the brutality of Vietnam before post-traumatic stress disorder was considered a legitimate mental illness.