Lasting Lessons of Overseas Military Psychiatry

Extract

Military psychiatry is a large subject with widespread ramifications. The general scope of the work at home has been well reviewed in J. R. Rees's paper, “Three Years of Military Psychiatry in the United Kingdom”; I need not, therefore, try to describe what he has described so well. Even in the overseas field, I must unwillingly avoid the fascinations of detailed discussion of the aetiology and treatment of “battle neurosis” in forward troops; there is already a wealth of papers on this subject, including the valuable symposium at the Section of Psychiatry of the Royal Society of Medicine last November, in which Palmer, Kenton, Craigie and Main took part. Kenton's contribution, being based on work in North Africa and Italy, outlines some of the experience on which my remarks to-day are based.