PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DEBRIEFING- A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Suzanna Rose PhD, MA, RN

This paper briefly describes a historical perspective of psychological trauma and the development of the intervention of psychological debriefing. It starts from the potent view is that, above all, the last century was one of war and bloodshed. Eric Hobsbawn (1994) estimates that the population of the world was decimated directly by war or indirectly by man's malevolent hand since 1900. This paper then highlights early historical accounts of traumatic reactions and moves on events from the twentieth century - in particular the two World Wars. It shows how combat reactions from the Vietnam War co-incided with the rise of feminism and indeed highlighted that traumatic reaction across many life-threatening events can produce a similar constellation of symptoms. Also described in the development of debriefing arising out of work done by an American military historian in World War II. This paper therefore offers a brief general historical view of the subject, with particular reference to the intervention known as psychological debriefing.