Psychoanalytic Investigation of Reaction to the War Crisis tf Candidates for Induction*

The recently published British surveys of the nervous reactions to air-raids are especially significant in their emphasis upon the importance of the pre-traumatic personality. The British observers found that those individuals who were not “sure of themselves” in the normal pre-war years, were usually the ones who showed pathological reactions when exposed to danger.

This recognition of the importance of the pre-traumatic personality is a direct outgrowth of the last world war, when investigators observed that precipitating factors in combination with the predisposing condition determined the neurotic reaction. Similarly, in a recent American publication dealing with neuropsychiatric disabilities that led to the discharge of soldiers from the Army, it is apparent that the authors were impressed by those neurotic factors which had persisted from childhood: somatic complaints, poor application at school, poor family and social background and unsatisfactory employment record. It was found that prior to induction, the same individuals did fairly well at home, where their symptoms were accepted and where they were protected and catered to. The stringent requirements of military service, however, brought their inadequacies fully to the foreground.

These publications stress the fact that from one-half to two-thirds of the soldiers who suffer nervous breakdown are predisposed to such disability.

The knowledge we acquired about the traumatic war neurosis during the first world war, came primarily from investigation of the relationship between the general neurotic anxiety and the special type of reaction exhibited by soldiers exposed to danger. Further probing through attempted treatment of this traumatic war neurosis confirmed that relationship, but, at the same time, uncovered a basic difference: