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This constitutes the report on the psychiatric disabilities precipitated in combat, by a special commission of civilian psychiatrists who made a study in the European theatre in the spring of 1945, under the auspices of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, at the request of the Neuropsychiatry Consultants Division of the Office of the Surgeon General. The clinical study begins with an extensive description of the social and psychological forces affecting the combat soldier. The one common emotional reaction is fear. The combat situation also releases a considerable amount of hostility, much of it in forbidden directions against members of his own team. Of the normal defenses which protected the soldier against these noxious factors, most significant is his position in the constellation of his social group, the combat team. His personal attachments—belonging to the group and feeling protected by its strength with a feeling of security resulting from training in the group and reliance on the leader—are of the utmost importance.
The group life of the combat soldier becomes his inner life. When his emotional bonds to the group are disrupted he, as a person, becomes disorganized. This disruption of group unity is a principal cause of the personality disorganization. The precipitating factor, especially under combat where there is no adequate recuperative pause, may be anything which alters the structure of the group with subsequent effect on the individual, or some event affecting the individual directly and subsequently his relation to the group. Precipitating events may have a double meaning in evoking old, buried and displaced emotions. For instance, a commanding officer's error may lead to expressions of exaggerated hostility and distrust, related originally to unresolved feelings of hatred toward a father. Likewise, the death of a comrade, loss of self-esteem, experience of a wound, the sight of another's mutilation, or friendly gestures from