Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

A follow-up study of war neuroses.Period of Military Service.

A follow-up study of war neuroses.: Period of Military Service. Duration of service, individual awards, rate of hospitalization, and other routine information presented in chapter I on the period of military service strongly suggest that as a group the men who suffered from psychoneurosis made a significant contribution to the war effort. The historical psychiatric material presented in this chapter constitutes even stronger evidence, although of course the judgment is one which lacks force in the absence of specific criteria for judging military performance. On a more general basis, however, it seems that any group, half of whose members engage in actual combat, is a group whose military contribution cannot be denied. A review of the military records shows clearly that the group is a quite heterogeneous one from the standpoint of the amount and quality of stress required to precipitate breakdown. On the basis of type of stress and location at breakdown it is, of course, possible to isolate subgroups which did not pay their way, but whether such subgroups might be detected at induction remains in serious doubt. Although it is combat which dominates the panorama of stress, the examiners agreed to an overwhelming extent that the illnesses were properly classified as psychoneuroses. The role that treatment played is hard to evaluate. About 60 percent of the men were lost to the service immediately or eventually because of psychiatric illness. Those who had another chance at a duty assignment did reasonably well. At separation 90 percent felt they were ill in some degree, and two-thirds had insight into the emotional origin of their illness. The great majority of men felt that their health had deteriorated since entry into service. Obviously, however, with the possible exception of those separated on psychiatric grounds, a majority had very largely recovered from the acute illness equated here with psychiatric breakdown. There remains, then, the question of their subsequent health, to which the follow-up examination was pointed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A follow-up study of war neuroses.Period of Military Service.

Brill, Norman Q.; Beebe, Gilbert W.
American Psychological Association — Apr 11, 2005
Download PDF
13 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/american-psychological-association/a-follow-up-study-of-war-neuroses-period-of-military-service-qA8PDhcjOh
Publisher
US Government Printing Office
Copyright
Copyright © 1955 American Psychological Association
Pages
106 –119
DOI
10.1037/10665-003
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

Duration of service, individual awards, rate of hospitalization, and other routine information presented in chapter I on the period of military service strongly suggest that as a group the men who suffered from psychoneurosis made a significant contribution to the war effort. The historical psychiatric material presented in this chapter constitutes even stronger evidence, although of course the judgment is one which lacks force in the absence of specific criteria for judging military performance. On a more general basis, however, it seems that any group, half of whose members engage in actual combat, is a group whose military contribution cannot be denied. A review of the military records shows clearly that the group is a quite heterogeneous one from the standpoint of the amount and quality of stress required to precipitate breakdown. On the basis of type of stress and location at breakdown it is, of course, possible to isolate subgroups which did not pay their way, but whether such subgroups might be detected at induction remains in serious doubt. Although it is combat which dominates the panorama of stress, the examiners agreed to an overwhelming extent that the illnesses were properly classified as psychoneuroses. The role that treatment played is hard to evaluate. About 60 percent of the men were lost to the service immediately or eventually because of psychiatric illness. Those who had another chance at a duty assignment did reasonably well. At separation 90 percent felt they were ill in some degree, and two-thirds had insight into the emotional origin of their illness. The great majority of men felt that their health had deteriorated since entry into service. Obviously, however, with the possible exception of those separated on psychiatric grounds, a majority had very largely recovered from the acute illness equated here with psychiatric breakdown. There remains, then, the question of their subsequent health, to which the follow-up examination was pointed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Published: Apr 11, 2005

Keywords: military service; psychoneurosis; combat stress

There are no references for this article.