Fun Fact: the primary victims of the Vietnam War were not the American soldiers, but the 3 million Vietnamese civilians
Forever thinking about that article (completely forgot who wrote it soz) that argues that PTSD is a western construct because in much of the world there is no post to the trauma, the trauma just keeps going
Symptoms congruent with what we call PTSD can be traced back at least to 1666 after the great fire in London. Yes, again a Eurocentric example, but it precedes the actual research into PTSD by centuries, so it’s more likely it’s a form of a condition able to be appear in humans.
However cultural understanding is different and symptoms are described and framed differently in different cultures, including stigmatising descriptions/definitions.
While shell shock is likely a heterogenous group of psychological and possibly somatic neurological symptoms that include PTSD, all forms of “invisible” post battle injuries have been framed as cowardice or inherent weakness at some point.
Interestingly enough there’s examples of cultures where PTSD-like symptoms are generally framed as weakness or madness; and even if not the language to describe experiences are very different.
Since the trauma that leads to PTSD is very individual as well (usually something perceived as life-threatening to one self or another, in a relative state of helplessness), it’s hard to quantify even within a homogenous group; and what seems banal to one person can trigger PTSD in someone else. The “objective” severity of trauma does not make PTSD any less real for the person who “objectively” wasn’t in a traumatising situation.
Reactions differ from group to group as well, likely depending on the context of the situation they were in (a combatant from Afghanistan doesn’t have the same triggers as civilian from WWII), social and psychological predisposition and priming, and of course cultural.
So, yeah, the argument that PTSD cannot be applied with its diagnostic criteria, psychological treatments, and cultural implications on non-Euro-American is true; the concept of PTSD as we know it does not currently accommodate cultural differences appropriately.
The conclusion that other humans in other cultures don’t experience PTSD or PTSD-adjacent states is bullshit and probably a nice tool to downplay the impact of imperialistic warfare.
