Psychosomatic Medicine 5:364-375 (1943)
© 1943 American Psychosomatic Society

A Socio-Psychiatric Investigation of Schizophrenia Occurring in the Armed Forces

¹ Worcester State Hospital

The present communication reports the results of the socio-psychiatric phase of a general psychosomatic research study of a series of psychiatric disorders occurring in men serving in the Armed Forces. The outstanding points were as follows:

1. The screening process at induction could have eliminated more than half of these cases if a minimum amount of easily procurable anamnestic data were available. These could be obtained through Social Service Exchange registrations and would include previous mental hospital residence, court records, social agency contacts, drug and alcohol addiction, etc.

2. It was found that certain socio-dynamic factors in the life history of these individuals when combined with certain types of personality characteristics tend to render the person vulnerable to the particular type of stress situations that are encountered in military life. It is a combination of these three that produces the psychiatric disorder.

3. Specifically in regard to schizophrenics, it was found that these can be arbitrarily divided into certain groups. In some of them constitutional or perhaps metabolic factors may be the determinants, and the military situation is, at most, only of precipitating importance. In this respect, they can be aligned with the psychopathic personalities. In others of the schizophrenics the factors in the military situation show a closer relationship to the social and psychological experiences in the life of the person. The latter and the psychoneuroses appear to be dynamically strongly dependent upon the stress produced in the Army.

Note:
Read before the meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Detroit, May, 1943.