War Nerves

There are neither “War Nerves” or “Peace Nerves.” But there are always neurotic manifestations due to a disturbed relationship to oneself and to others. These neurotic manifestations may have physical expressions such as headache, palpitation and fatigue, and mental expressions such as insomnia, fears, compulsions, apprehensiveness and irritability. These symptoms of mental illness are easily discerned by the sufferer and conveyed to the psychiatrist. Much more difficult to observe and verify is the character structure of that individual which leads to more or less disturbed reactions to himself and others and of which he may be quite unaware.

During World War I, “Shell Shock,” later referred to as the “Traumatic Neurosis,” was frequently observed among soldiers. This type of mental reaction followed a physical or mental injury or trauma occurring during war experience. It was also observed that this same illness occurred in civilian life.

The outstanding features of this picture are the insistence on the causal connection of all present symptoms to the alleged obvious injury; a diminished capacity and interest in bodily and mental functions as well as work and social relationships previously participated in; a marked irritability; a tendency to explosive aggressive reactions; and the occurrence repetitiously of particularly unpleasant and catastrophic dreams often containing fragments or all of the original traumatic event.

There are certain preconditions which make the appearance of this syndrome more likely. That individual must be failing to maintain a state of apparent social adjustment. So often by social adjustment is really meant rigid conformity to certain formal socially dictated patterns of behavior. Such adjustment is at the expense of real spontaneous creative living. Fewer and fewer real satisfactions out of living is another precondition.

There must also be an increasing sense of failure in living up to a particular type of illusion about oneself. That in