Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been known by several other names throughout history, reflecting changes in medical understanding and societal attitudes toward trauma.

The most commonly used historical alternative names are:

• Shell shock – This term emerged during World War I (1914–1918) to describe soldiers who exhibited severe emotional distress, tremors, confusion, nightmares, and impaired sight or hearing after exposure to artillery bombardment. Doctors initially believed it was caused by physical brain damage from exploding shells (“shell shock”), but it was later recognized as a psychological injury.
• Combat stress reaction (CSR) or battle fatigue – Used during and after World War II and the Korean War, these terms replaced “shell shock” because the earlier label was seen as stigmatizing. They emphasized that the condition was a temporary reaction to the extreme stress of combat rather than a permanent character flaw or cowardice.
• War neurosis or traumatic neurosis – Popular in the early-to-mid 20th century among psychiatrists influenced by Freudian theory. These terms framed the symptoms as a form of neurosis triggered by overwhelming fright or life-threatening events.
• Post-Vietnam syndrome – In the 1970s, clinicians working with Vietnam War veterans used this informal term before the American Psychiatric Association officially recognized “post-traumatic stress disorder” in 1980 (DSM-III).
• Rape trauma syndrome and battered woman syndrome – In the 1970s, researchers studying sexual assault and domestic violence survivors used these parallel terms, which helped demonstrate that PTSD-like symptoms were not limited to combat veterans.

Officially, since 1980 the diagnostic term in both the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and ICD (International Classification of Diseases) is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). All earlier names refer to essentially the same cluster of symptoms intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in mood and thinking, and hyperarousal triggered by exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence, whether in war or civilian life.