On Groups

In the treatment of individuals neurotic disability is attacked as a problem of the individual. In the rehabilitation centre neurotic disability had to be attacked as a problem of the society. But this fact had to be made clear to the patients and it had to be done in such a way that the men could see early for themselves that this was not simply a pious aspiration but was a job of work that lay before them and the doctor alike. How this was to be done was in itself a problem.

A way of solution presented itself in an unexpected manner. In the course of attempting to build up a healthy and sound discipline it seemed best not to attempt some formal and drill-like obedience but rather to aim at the sort of discipline that pervades a good regiment in action or in a theatre of war. As anyone with combatant experience is aware, contact with the enemy brings about the sort of relaxation in discipline that is analogous to the difference that can be observed between the studied accuracy of a coach demonstrating a stroke at tennis, and the same stroke carried out by an experienced player during a match. Petty detail is not insisted on, yet the discipline as a whole is rigorous in the extreme; the letter of the law is not binding but the observance of its spirit is exact. But how was such an ideal to be attained? In action there is an enemy and there is danger; there is a unifying purpose to give point to obedience and to make clear at last the value of procedures long endured but never loved. What could take the place of this enemy?

The common purpose to be substituted for the fighting soldier's aim to defeat the enemy had to be found, and it had to possess the same reality and urgency and importance for the survival of the society and the individuals composing it. Obviously, there was only one aim in a psychiatric hospital that could be comparable and which in

the event proved itself to be comparable – the determination to tackle neurotic disability as a problem, a social pr