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La guerra dei nervi. Soldati traumatizzati sul fronte occidentale 1914/1918

Based on the personal stories of men belonging to the English and German armed forces, this book describes the sufferings of soldiers involved in the conflict and the mental health consequences, often devastating. Woman Doctor Linden explains how war nevrosis questioned the base of philosophical thought before war itself, with its blind belief in the superiority of the male sex, the military class and of scientific progress. La guerra dei nervi is the first work which takes from original documents coming from both fronts and includes a wide range of unpublished recordings on life and trauma of soldiers in the trench. The focus is on the soldier experience which takes to a nervous breakdown. Leaning on her medical knowledge, the author links many therapies used to treat modern traumas to medical discoveries happened during the First World War, confirming that the experiences lived by patients and doctors are extremely relevant nowadays to comprehend post-traumatic stress disorder.


Stefanie Linden is a psychiatrist and medicine historian. She works as a professor in the Maastricht University (Netherlands), History, Ethics and Sociology of Medicine Department. She completed a PhD at King’s College, London, in 2011 and 2014; she is currently studying the relation among psychic trauma, somatic expression and cultural factors.

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