The psychiatric interview in the social setting of a War Office Selection Board

This chapter provides the "Psychiatric Interview in the Social Setting of a War Office Selection Board"(WOSB). The words "in the Social Setting" are important, because the psychiatrist was a technical member of a team of observers, who were regarded by the candidates collectively as a board. The members of the board were a group whose component units were necessary to one another for information and advice. The candidates are told that if their notion of a psychiatrist is simply to get mental defectives out of the Army and neurotics into and out of hospital, then they have something new to learn. And then, in an aside apropos of learning, they are told that the WOSB's tests are a new experience and they are invited to participate in them as observers and not as mere victims, and to feel free to ask questions about the aim of the tests.