Report of an Expert Committee on the work of Psychologists and Psychiatrists in the Services
The Privy Council Office
- Author:
H.M. Stationery
This report was completed in January 1945 by a Committee of Great Eminence, which included the Directors General of the three medical services, the President of the Royal College of Physicians, and Professors of Psychology in Cambridge and Reading, as well as Psychiatry in Edinburgh and London, and was chaired by Sir Wilson Jameson and later Sir Francis Fraser.
It is thus difficult to understand why it was not published until March of 1947, especially since it answers the majority of those who still have genuine doubts about the value of these subjects to the Services.
Moreover, it emphasises the work done in research, training, and morale. as well as giving statistics on the known aspects of selection and clinical work. It will obviously be a blueprint for planning the future of the services and its lessons are applicable to civilian life. Inevitably, it recalls the Report of the War Office Committee of Inquiry into Shell Shock (1922), the Southborough Report ; in form and conciseness, it outdoes the latter, though it lacks something of colour and emphasis. Undoubtedly, those who realised that many of the findings of 1922 had been forgotten by 1938, will welcome the foreword where the Privy Council assures us that the findings of “45 have already been implemented by considerable measure. It is hoped that the report of work done since 1945 will be made available with less delay.
R.F.T.
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