Judith Lewis Herman, MD, feminist psychiatrist and contemporary expert in psychological trauma, argues and then demonstrates that physicians and psychologists have been able to treat with some efficacy the medically and historically observable symptoms of PTSD only since society in general has considered them legitimate complaints. In Trauma and Recovery, Herman (1997) chronicles the intermittent and shifting social and epistemological perspectives about the causes and treatment of the psychological aftereffects of violent trauma. Her rendering of the historical development of the concept and treatment of PTSD is fascinating and important for several reasons. First, her chronicle illustrates the enactionist argument that major shifts in shared cognitions (culture) require shifts in individual cognition, behaviors, and communication across large populations. The furor over the recognition of PTSD—from Janet’s and Freud’s (late 1800s) research in hysteria, to Rivers’s and Kardiner’s (early 1900s) research with shell-shocked soldiers, to current examinations of trauma in multiple circumstances, from war crimes to automobile accidents—reflects how very closely this disorder touches upon and challenges core beliefs western developed nations hold about the nature of human character and social relationships. Then, even when PTSD became defined medically in the 1980 American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-III) (Appendix A), the diagnosis continued to be debated and revised for the next two editions published over fourteen years. Shifting cultural cognitions and communications, as enactionists would predict, requires considerable and concerted effort.