A weak spot in the personality? conceptualising “war neurosis” in British medical literature of the Second World War

Title: A weak spot in the personality? conceptualising “war neurosis” in British medical literature of the Second World War
Creator: Roberts-Pedersen, Elizabeth
Relation: Australian Journal of Politics & History Vol. 58, Issue 3, p. 408-420
Publisher Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8497.2012.01644.x
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Asia
Resource Type: journal article
Date: 2012
Description: Through an analysis of leading British medical journals during the Second World War, this article argues that psychiatric understandings of the “war neurosis” suffered by British servicemen during that conflict were predicated on a notion of the “neurotic serviceman” as an objective personality type predisposed to break down during the strain of wartime. By discounting the effects of traumatic war experiences in favour of an aetiology that located the genesis of psychiatric disorder within the inherently unstable individual, such an approach minimized the influence of the martial environment in favour of heredity and the events of early childhood as the ultimate arbiters of mental stability in service personnel.
Subject: personality; war neurosis; British medical literature; Second World War
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1356795
Identifier: uon:31788
Identifier: ISSN:0004-9522
Language: eng
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