A view of women suffering from shock under blankets on sofas and armchairs, attended to by a nurse

A view of women suffering from shock under blankets on sofas and armchairs, attended to by a nurse, in the rest room of a factory. ‘Air raid shock’ is believed to have been similar to shell shock, along with ‘civilian war neuroses’. The term was introduced in 1917 after a mother murdered her child during an air raid, claiming that the psychological distress of bombing raids had caused her to have a nervous breakdown. Historically, ‘hysteria’ was predominantly a female condition – thus ‘shell shock’ was coined to distance soldiers from “effeminate associations”. ‘Air raid shock’ and ‘civilian war neuroses’ sustained this dichotomy; the terms continued the division between the battlefield and the home front. It resulted in “hysteria” and increasingly difficult behaviour in children, and psychological symptoms such as temporary deafness, stammer, suicidal thoughts, depression, and exhaustion. In 1942 it was suggested that the “ideal treatment” for a patient suffering from air raid shock were plasma and blood transfusions, but women were often not diagnosed or treated for the trauma they were suffering. Today, the symptoms of ‘air raid shock’ and ‘shell shock’ are recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder.

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