
Contents
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European Debates on War Neuroses: From Shell Shock to Nervous Fright and Hysteria European Debates on War Neuroses: From Shell Shock to Nervous Fright and Hysteria
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War Neurosis in the Ottoman Empire War Neurosis in the Ottoman Empire
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Dementia Praecox and Schizophrenia Dementia Praecox and Schizophrenia
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Hysterical Conditions Hysterical Conditions
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Simulating Illness: Malingering Simulating Illness: Malingering
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Prisoners of War Prisoners of War
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A Psychopathological Condition: The Road to Degeneracy A Psychopathological Condition: The Road to Degeneracy
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Questions of Ethnicity Questions of Ethnicity
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Conclusion Conclusion
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Notes Notes
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5 War Neuroses and Prisoners of War: Wartime Nervous Breakdown and the Politics of Medical Interpretation
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Published:April 2013
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Abstract
This chapter examines psychiatric discourse and practice during the war and early post-war years to argue that the doctors’ sense of nationalism and contemporary socio-medical theories determined diagnostic practice when dealing with mental breakdown of prisoners and non-prisoners alike. Following the German approach to psychiatry, Ottoman-Turkish neuro-psychiatrists, namely Mazhar Osman, believed that ‘war neurosis’ and ‘shell-shock’ were nothing more than hysteria or neurasthenia and only those who were weak or hereditarily tainted succumbed to them. During the war, prisoners, having escaped the war, were assumed to be free of mental disorders. However, when they were slowly repatriated well after the war, neuro-psychiatrists observed that many suffered from significant mental problems. Many of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Whether it took place while fighting or in captivity, mental ailments from which the soldiers and prisoners suffered were interpreted as indicators of an already existing condition. Rather than being seen as victims of industrial war or long years of captivity, these men were deemed to be the victims of their tainted heredity, where war or captivity only served as a pretext to uncover an underlying condition.
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