The Smith College Program in Psychiatric Social Work: A Pioneering Contribution to Veteran Mental Health

ABSTRACT

On 7 July 1918, 68 women arrived on the Smith College campus in Northampton, Massachusetts, to learn how to assist in the treatment of shell-shocked soldiers and veterans of the Great War. The Training School of Psychiatric Social Work was the first academic program organized to teach mental health professionals about what today is called posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to equip them to treat those suffering from it. This essay addresses three questions about this program: How and why did the Smith College Training School of Psychiatric Social Work come into being? What was the experience of those who taught and learned there? What effect did the Training School have on the treatment of PTSD in the postwar years?