Evolution of the nosography of post-traumatic psychological injuries of war: From dissociation to clinical principles

Abstract

Clinical medicine is not bound in an unchangeable framework. “New” pathologies are described, and disappear, in a societal context that admits a particular psychological or psychopathological expression at any given moment. The intense individual and collective echoes of war are reflected in periods of excessive individual and societal psychological suffering that could create “new diagnoses” in the field of psychotraumatology. In this work, we propose a socio-anthropological approach to examine the origin of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in American nosography. We then critically discuss Gulf War syndrome and post-concussion syndrome after mild traumatic brain injury. Finally, we examine the situation in France—notably the clinical foundations and principles of the 1992 military decree that is applied under the French Military Pensions Code in case of disablement, victims of war and acts of terrorism, which has remained both germane and pertinent despite nosographic pressure.