Shell Shock, Combat Stress, and PTSD

War is terrible. It throws people into horrible, gruesome, frightening situations. The following is the video Let There Be Light directed by John Huston as part of a trilogy of films done for the US military during WWII.

The film was controversial in its extremely effective portrayal of shell-shocked soldiers from the war (now called PTSD). It was subsequently banned after its release despite the fact that the movie was commissioned by the US Army itself, due to the potentially demoralizing effects the film might have on the soldiers.

I find it fascinating to watch actual people being treated with various therapies:

• Talk therapy at 4:28 minutes shows the basic treatment of simply listening to the stories and trying to get the soldiers to talk through their issues.


• Sodium amytal at 18:05 minutes is used to treat hysterical paralysis, and at 38:55 it is used to treat "battle tension". The drugs set them up to be susceptible to verbal suggestion. This shows how powerful the mind is in putting people into crazy kinks arising purely from a mental condition.


• Hypnosis at 31:50 minutes uses hypnosis to treat problems like amnesida and other neuroses by walking the patient through the traumatizing experience while under hypnosis.

Another very interesting aspect of this film is the full integration of the races shown in the film. This wasn't the norm of the society and it certainly wasn't the real condition in the military which remained segregated until the Korean war. This should make you a little queasy about accepting the film on "face value" because this aspect of the film is not honest about the underlying racism of the society. This is the film director using his power to "control" the filming to "create a reality" which was all that real.

The film is interesting to watch to get insights about the military, WWII injuries, racism in mid-century America, the treatment of mental illness, and an appreciation of how much things have changed in the last 65 years.

My father was released at the end of WWII with a week's "classes" in how to reintegrate into the post-war civilian society. But that didn't "take". He spent months hanging out in the back 40 of the farm pulling himself together. It was tough, but like almost all the men of that generation he got over the war "experience" and never wanted to talk about it again. He would answer factual questions but never wanted to "re-live" the experience and didn't talk about combat. He would talk about shore leave and hijinks but not the war itself.

My mother underwent her own "stress" during WWII while serving in the military. As the war wound down she rebelled against the discipline and the institution came down hard on her for her "insubordination" despite over two years of conscientious service. They ended up locking her up in a psychiatric hospital for a month or so as a kind of punishment before she was demobilized. I only found out about this over 40 years after it happened. She too didn't want to "dwell" on her war experience despite it being in the relatively sane conditions of living state-side and away from the fighting.