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Received as The Forum went to press.
I think the authors oversimplify when they select a single character trait and label it “the significant character trait.” To determine what produces the accident syndrome, one must study the total person, which is done best by psychiatric or psychoanalytic study of the subject himself. Information from friends and relatives is superficial, subjective, biased, and may even be imaginary; it is not reliable as a scientific tool.
The authors say that the purpose of the impulsive activity is pleasure and approval and they relate it to the infant's attempting to walk. No evidence is given for these explanations. I do not believe the purpose is pleasure or approval, or that it is a regression. I think the “impulsive act” probably is to discharge extreme anger which the accident victim is unable or afraid to express in an open, direct and adaptive way. The impulsive act is akin to a childhood temper tantrum.
The authors' second point is that the assumption of new responsibility is the stress that precipitates the accident. No evidence is presented for this conclusion either. What was the time relationship between new responsibility and accident? Was anything else going on in the victim's life at the time of the accident? What happened the day of the accident? What feelings did he have? These important questions are not answered. To find these answers, the investigator must interview the accident victim himself very soon after the accident, before amnesia sets in.
In my study of a group of accident repeaters and a control group of people on the same job who had no accidents, I found that the typical accident repeater had great anger which he suppressed and was disorganized, disorderly, careless. He was a passive, dependent character. The accident serves as, (a) a substitute outlet for suppressed anger, (b) self-punishment for sexual guilt, and (c) a way of getting care, attention and dependency gratification (listed in order of frequency).
Th