Hardcastle observed two hundred and fifty service men in Britain suffering from states of anxiety, disturbance of sleep, lack of confidence, diminished interest in sex, and aggressive behavior. He gives several case reports which illustrate 'that in each case there were indications of pregenital fixations and that these reinforced the external trauma or else made the man less able to cope with his high charges of anxiety'. He adds a description of three traumatic neuroses in civilian life in which the significance of the patients' aggressive impulses in their reactions to the trauma was prominent. There follows a discussion of Freud's theory of traumatic neurosis, especially of the attempts at an active repetition of what was passively experienced and of the displacements from actual helplessness to the expectation of helplessness.