Shell Shock: The Response of UK Neurology

The neurological and psychological manifestations of trauma, confinement, and terror became apparent throughout Europe as soldiers were evacuated from the trenches of the Western Front. The response in the UK evolved as a result of the experience of medical staff embedded with the troops in base hospitals and the philosophy of those treating returned soldiers in specialist establishment. There were widely disparate approaches to the management encompassing simple supportive care, a psychanalytic approach and radical electric shock therapy. The latter was partially driven by the Queen Square experience in the UK but was also concurrently widely pursued throughout Europe. With experience, care was increasingly undertaken close to the front lines using a philosophy of immediacy and expectation of recovery. Post-war analysis was startlingly unsympathetic, yet the experiences and management of <i>shell shock</i> have guided psychiatric and medical understanding of functional illness and post-traumatic stress over the subsequent century. In this historical review, we have sought to present features of the UK response to the neurological manifestations of trauma, the way in which these changed as the war proceeded and the political and medical response in the aftermath of war.

Twelve of the Fifty-One Shocks of Antonin Artaud

In ‘Artaud at Rodez’, published in the sixth issue of the original Theatre Quarterly, Charles Marowitz pursued an investigation into the nature of the alleged madness of Antonin Artaud, for which he was confined during the Second World War – eventually being transferred to the asylum at Rodez where he was subjected to electric shock ‘therapy’. Marowitz's article, which later formed the basis for his play of the same title, explored the motivations and responses of those involved: here, Nigel Ward focuses rather on the nature and effects of the treatment itself, inflicted on Artaud no less than fifty-one times – a treatment which, however controversial, was ironically appropriate for the creator of a ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ which itself claimed to purge its audience of weaknesses and to heal through shock. Nigel Ward is a tutor on the MA in Performance Studies course at the Central School of Speech and Drama.