ABSTRACT

NEUROTIC SYMPTOMS and the ability to do good work sometimes go together; but the neurotic illnesses which occur in some uprooted men and women in the Armed Forces are seldom compatible with good military work. The work may have been at first poorly done because it was uncongenial, unsuited to the soldier’s capacities and previous training, not of his own choosing, tedious and flat, or onerous: and his neurotic illness may have sprung from this failure in occupational adjustment, to which the neurosis will then further contribute. Or the man’s military employment may be well enough suited to his abilities and normal interests, but extraneous causes (such as quarrels with his companions, marital troubles, dread or hate of a superior) may lead to a neurotic illness which clogs his work. Some causes and some effects of neurotic illness have no doubt little to do with a man’s work; but when every aspect, including the constitutional, has been given its proper emphasis and perspective in the picture of military neurosis, it is plain that unfitness of the man for his present job or of the job for the man is fre­ quently and impressively in the foreground.