The Psychological Problems of the Returned Ex-Serviceman
- Author:
RATCLIFFE, M.B., D.P.M., D.C.H., late Lt.-Col., R.A.M.C.
Consulting Regional Neuro-psychiatrist to the Ministry of Pensions. ” Then Pallas moved Ulysses to appeal To every suitor for a dole of bread … they pitied him and gave, but giving asked The ancient swineherd who the stranger was.
And when he answered, thus Antinous spake: Why did you bring another beggar here ? Have we not vagabonds and rogues enough ? ” The Odyssey has told us the story of Ulysses returned from the Trojan War, and his long wanderings; we know the difficulties that he met, his bitterness and his disillusionment. But there is a modern counterpart. The problem of Ulysses is the problem of the many thousands of Displaced Persons in Europe to-day, of the returned Prisoner of War, and, to a lesser but still very significant degree, of every ex-Serviceman and woman after release.
It is difficult to estimate the exact size of this problem. The psychiatrist may only see the grossly maladjusted few, though he will see the difficulties amongst his friends and colleaguesWe will see the side effects in the Marriage Guidance Clinics, in Child Guidance Centres, and in th? delinquency statistics. The social worker w1’ / meet it in her histories and it will have its influence on industrial and man-management problems and in the wide field of politics, too. It is certainly a very big problem and one we have all got to face UP to; it remains one of the major problems of Present day preventive psychiatry. What exactly is this problem, and how does it arise ?
There are many factors, some superficial and obvious, and others of deeper significance. First ?f all, four, five or six years is a long time out of a serviceman’s life?and out of his families’ life too. The youth of 18 comes back as a mature young man?and a man who has seen much, and known much, that he could not otherwise have done. **e has lived, and got entirely used to, a strange new environment, an environment quite unlike that ?f his everyday life?and quite unlike the environment in which his family has remained. The Vputh, training for his profession or just started in his career, comes back a grown man, and perhaps parried and with new commitments, but still at the same stage of knowledge of his civilian duties. What of the economic factor this entails, as well as he psychological one ?
The married, older man, too, has his problems, will find a wife older than she was, perhaps a htle less attractive to look at after the strain of the ^ar years; certainly she will be of necessity more independent?and he may or may not like that. ^ls children will have changed a great deal; they may not even recognize him-?or he, them; they jhay even resent the intrusion of this new stranger nto their environment.
There is the difference of environment too. He j*hd they have been interested in such different hings all these years. He knows, of course, there ave been difficulties for the housewife, but does e really realize what these have been ? And will he really understand that affection which even the ?st joyfully released serviceman feels for the ervice he has left ? Will she be willing or able to nderstand the service viewpoint he still has ? ^ st as they both found it difficult to adjust when he as’ called up, so will the release period bring the ?d for readjustment too.
to returning serviceman, though he would hate fe ia^m^ ft, does feel something of a hero. He tell f6 ^as d?ne a good job of work; he wants to to k ^as seen anc^ done. In short he wants shoot a bit of a line. But does he always 5^ ember that his family have their own line to ^ ?ot too ? Just as the serviceman is apt to look civT1 a httle on the ” mere civilian so is the ser an a httte on his guard towards the exIa VJCernan. People ” who don’t speak the same nt, 8uaSe ” are always rather suspicious of each Wh ke ll?at. o hen he is in the service, and particularly if he is r.s.eas> the serviceman will tend to paint an r0sa d picture of his home?tend to stress the def.es round the cottage door and forget the reaof C sanftation. That is a perfectly natural ^ith n’ an^ ^nevfta^’e- ?ut supposing that home, Co lts realities, its queues, its shortages, does not e UP to that dream picture. That will lead to disappointment?and uncontrolled disappointment can only lead to bitterness, to resentment, to blaming everyone from the Government to one’s wife, for everything that is not up to the standards of the idealized dream picture. And that resentment can be very deep and wide; in the unstable it can lead to political anarchy or delinquency?in others to domestic bickering or to a complete withdrawal from the realities of life. It can produce its own anxieties.
There are other factors too numerous to mention. One cannot train a man for six years to kill and destroy without profound psychological changes; nor can one switch him back to his normal social status and responsibilities by the mere machinery of release. For these years, too, he, and for that matter his family, have been in danger of death, sudden and terrifying. He has learned to live dangerously. The fighter pilot must return to his routine work as a bank clerk, where his greatest adventure will be the risk of missing the 8.15 train to town. The shy, reserved man who found in the monastic comradeship of the Mess a new way to mix, must return to his own old social problems and difficulties. The hen-pecked husband who found new freedom?and with it his own selfconfidence?must return to the former situation and its resulting conflict.
We are apt to regard the Services as the natural stifling ground of initiative and responsibility, but many men have found the power of leadership and quick responsible decision during their service. How will such a man react if he must return to a pre-war job which, by reason of his age when he left it, is a very subordinate post. Many of us have heard of the young police constable who returned as a Wing Commander?there are many such cases in lesser degree.
The major domestic and marital problems play their part too. Most of us who served overseas have met the man who has deferred his release rather then come home and face up to the situation of an unfaithful wife. But sooner or later the problem will confront him. Many of us know from experience the numerical size of this problem, for just as the V.D. rate rises, as readjustment problems increase and morale falls with longer service overseas, so does the number of compassionate domestic problems sharply mount when the period away exceeds two years. This is only one facet of the civilian side of the problem of readjustment?but it is a mutual need for readjustment, and each side of the picture must deeply concern the other.
Here is a composite picture of repatriation and release as it affected one specific group of Army officers with whom I had very close personal contact; it may help to emphasize some aspects of the problem, and show how easy it is to set up difficulties and how best we can help, to combat them.
The initial stage dates from the first announcement of one’s release programme and is a progressive “couldn’t care less” attitude towards one’s work and towards the army generally?a very natural reaction but one which has its obvious dangers. Then comes the first stage of release, the transit camp?the first reaction is one of enthusiasm and expectancy, but, as the days go by, there is a realization that one is shortly leaving one’s friends and familiar surroundings behind, and an increasing tendency to talk of the difficulties and shortages at home and the advantages of life in a land of plenty. Quite seriously some begin to wonder if it would not have been better if they had found a job overseas. It is interesting to see, too, the quickness with which any disappointment or discomfort in the camp is magnified by resentment and projection. The voyage home is a replica of this transit camp experience, with the mood varying from excitement and expectancy to dread and forebodings. You will see the same mixture of moods on the actual day of arrival in England. There is the same tendency to dramatize delays and difficulties; but equally the official welcome and the slick efficiency and friendliness of the Release Centre, produce a good effect far beyond that normally expected, though tinged by surprise that people are really glad to see one back. At the actual homecoming it is the small details of the idealized dream picture that count, with an intensity of disappointment if they fail far out of proportion to their apparent significance. If we had always visualized our reunion taking place on the front doorstep, it is disconcerting to be met at the railway station, but then, of course, the family may always have thought of that meeting as on the platform, and that is equally important. What signs shall we expect to see of this readjustment problem ?
Perhaps the commonest of all, so common as to be almost universal even in those who adjust quickly and well, is a feeling of restlessness; it is difficult to settle down to the old job and the old routine, no matter how suitable or congenial these may be. Carried one stage further there comes dissatisfaction with one’s employment?or home? and a change of job, perhaps the first of many. Disappointment, bitterness and resentment are common too. We do not need to stress the difficulties and shortages of a post-war world, but often our readjustment problem results only in bitterness and projected resentment over these difficulties, rather than in an attempt to cope with them, or try and improve the situation within our limitations. How much of the industrial disputes, of the extremist political views and of the increase of anti-social offences which invariably follow a major war, can be traced back to these factors ? Faced by a difficult readjustment problem, many will find their defence in a withdrawal from it; sometimes this is to a gross pathological degree but often there will be a difficulty in mixing, an increased shyness, a slighter withdrawal from social contacts and the difficulties of life. The mood may become one of apathy, but rather more frequently there will be suspicion and guarding against any who try to pass through the wall of withdrawal that has been built up in an attempt at self-protection. There will be the old feeling that the civilian cannot?or perhaps will notrunderstand the serviceman. And, as this suspicion feeds upon itself, a wider barrier of resentment and disgruntlement will form.
These are the characteristic signs that this period of readjustment may show. But just as other > forms of psychological stress will produce individual reactions in each individual personality, so we shall see the results of this problem sometimes as anxiety, sometimes as an hysterical reaction and sometimes even as a psychotic breakdown. It may form part or all of the aetiological background of any psychiatric illness of this period.
Since the causative factors are so complex and numerous, so is the solution of this problem a many-sided one.
First there is the preventive aspect, and the most important single factor here is the preknowledge of the problem, the realization that the difficulties occur and the frank acceptance of the causes involved. This is a problem both for the civilian and the serviceman, a problem for the Service authorities and for the family too.
. For the Services, the problem is relatively easyMen awaiting the time of release are grouped together and readily accessible. They can be given all the available information on resettlement programmes, on retraining for industry, on the methods of release. Above all they can?and should?be given a clear picture of the special problems that await them, of the difficulties and disappointments they may have to face, and of the need for careful readjustment. This can best | be done by giving brief informal talks to each group of men as they come up for release. The speaker, of course, must be enthusiastic and well briefed-” and above all capable and willing to discuss the many queries that will be raised; he must, in short, have a very clear picture of the difficulties to h? faced, and of the problem. I can only speak wit/1 j experience of one major overseas theatre where this j was done, but the results did justify the effort, and it was interesting to watch the men’s own outlook change from an attitude of ” this is only some more eyewash to cover up the Army’s failures to one of interest, discussion and, often, gratitudeWe were fortunate, too, to have in this theatre an enthusiastic liaison officer from the Ministry ot Labour who was able to arrange talks on the more specific aspects of the home problems.
It is equally important that the family and cird6 to which the serviceman is returning should kno^ of this problem. They, too, will have idealiz^ the home-coming in their imagination; they, to”, will resent any differences in. him, unless they hav6 been forewarned. They, too, must know of th? need for gradual readjustment on both sides. think that we could, and should, do much more }? spread this knowledge, for disappointment, with its resulting resentment and bitterness, on the families’ s,de can only increase the vicious circle of Maladjustment.
Then there is the importance of the welcome back. The serviceman returns with a mixture of Pnde in himself and his achievements, and a fear that he may not be wanted. Both can be helped we let him see we are glad to have him back; but let the welcome be sincere and not effusive. wants. to feel secure in the knowledge that we ^ant him back and that he has a part to play in the new world to which he returns. , I recently came across two employers; one had J^d many personnel disputes and problems since be war, whilst the other had a happy, contented, bd therefore efficient, staff. It was not a concidence that one had made his returning service biployees feel genuinely welcome, whilst the other egarded them as ” these so-and-so soldiers who orrie back and demand everything “?and treated irrf01 acc?rdingly. Good man-management is as Portant in industry as ever it was in the services, bd doubly important at this time.
is the first few weeks after release that are the ?st important for readjustment, for resentment r suspicion once engendered will make the problem any times more difficult. It is during that time ^Pecially that both serviceman and family must Prepared to make allowances for each other, to difReCt eac^ other’s periods of withdrawal and ‘?hculty and, above all, to get to know each other ?wly and afresh. It is a phase that cannot and ust not be hurried, and any auxiliary help that ,Vlronment can give will be valuable. It is for jsls reason that a sort of “second honeymoon ” thS<H-?ften a use^ul aid?though children may be r.e difficulty here for they too need their period of , ^Justment.
ah i ^ay re’ease, 56 days of leave stretch ent as an a^rnost unbelievably long period ?ne either to a vegetable life of doing to ln8, or, according to temperament, to planning 0 all the things one has dreamt of doing into that period. Both are understandable and valuable in moderation, but both have their obvious dangers. Hasten slowly is the best motto here as elsewhere in this phase.
Just in the same way the ex-serviceman may feel ?or is it perhaps his wife who more often has the thought ??that he should visit all his friends and relations during that leave period. Here, too, it is wise to go slowly and to dictate one’s visits by genuine desire and not purely by a sense of duty. Just as a child must adjust to a slowly widening ring of contacts as it passes from infancy to childhood, so should the new contacts of the ex-serviceman be -slowly broadened, each readjustment being firmly founded before the next is reached.
Anyone who has interviewed a repatriated prisoner of war who has had severe readjustment difficulties, will know how difficult that interview may be; how each word must be weighed carefully, and how each word may be weighed by the recipient. He will know the difficulty of gaining support and confidence, and that the gaining of that confidence is an absolute necessity for any success. He will have experienced the gradual build up of contact until the patient accepts the efforts to help him as genuine and worthwhile.
The problem of the released serviceman is of the same kind, though usually of lesser degree. Genuineness of feeling and intention, tact, understanding, the avoidance of fuss, patience, the ability to gain confidence and, above all, a real knowledge of the difficulties are the essentials. Given these, confidence will be gained and with it readjustment. The process is, and must be, slow but it is practicable. With that success of readjustment we shall avoid much psychiatric disaster and domestic unhappiness and gain full value from the experiences of the war years. Without it we shall have resentment, bitterness and the foundations of future quarrels; its loss will affect not only individual happiness, but may even influence national and international conduct. It is a problem for serviceman and civilian alike.
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