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Addressing his comments to medical and line officers, Colonel Ebaugh outlines briefly and simply some of the important factors in the genesis, the mechanisms, and the early recognition of neurotic disorders in military personnel. He prefaces his discussion with this statement: 'Without early consideration and correction, mild personality disorders in soldiers tend to become fixed. However, premature and unnecessary hospitalization is a disaster. Recovery is resisted unless assurance can be given that the soldier will not be returned to the same untenable situations that caused the symptoms.'
The soldier experiencing excessive anxiety may solve the problem in one of several ways. The personality may 'heed and utilize the "alarm"', and by the 'constructive use of awareness of anxiety in all its forms' prevent further anxiety. A second method is to meet anxiety by enduring it which can be successful to a limited degree and if unrelieved leads to the development of psychosomatic equivalents. The third method is an attempt to protect the ego through 'psychological evasions'—the development of a neurosis.