SHELL-SHOCK SOLDIERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 December 1940, Page 12

SHELL-SHOCK SOLDIERS

“THE NEED OF DISCIPLINE” LONDON, November 1. What is the right treatment for soldiers suffering from shell-shock? The question has given rise to controversy among doctors in England and has led to two resignations from a war neurosis centre. The doctors who have resigned, Dr. John Bowlby and Dr. Kenneth Soddy, were appointed as resident psychiatrists to deal with the sudden demand after Dunkirk. They, state that they found the centre unequipped to receive the men, having virtually nothing except beds and a (psychiatrically) untrained nursing staff. “In one of many discussions, W6| stated our view that this great majority of the patients were mentally, ill, and as much in need of 'special treatment as a man with a broken leg. The director, who was a neurologist,!

disagreed with us, holding that except for the few who were exhausted, concussed or Psychotic, the men. were not ill but in need of discipline and somewhat forceful encouragement. His frequent use of the term ‘scrimshankers’ and his constant concern lest we be imposed upon by the men ;left us in no doubt about, his real opinion of them.” • • • '- The two doctors add that many of the patients, after the visit' of a consultant in neurology, “felt that he had called them cowards.” The doctors’ own view was that the condition of anxiety and depression they found in the patients called for a period of rest with sedatives, followed by suitable occupation combined with psychotherapy. “Having failed to influence our seniors,” the doctors conclude,, “we determined to resign, partly as a protest and partly because, in the conditions, we could not continue to accept professional responsibility for patients, and also we wished to be free to prac;ise psycho-therapy elsewhere.”