ABSTRACT
In March 1939, psychiatrists wrote to the War Office of Britain to offer up their services in the likely event of war. The response? A resounding silence. This unpromising start marked the first words (and the first silence) in a discussion of psychological science that would span the war. The psychiatrist, or ‘trick cyclist’ in soldiers’ slang, was a controversial
figure during World War II. At War Office Selection Boards, psychiatrists sought a voice to speak not only of the deviant populations that they conventionally studied, but also to discuss normal and even ‘superior’ members of society. Winston Churchill, amongst others, was not at all sure about this, noting the ‘immense amount of harm’ they might do. Suspicions of ‘these gentlemen’ and their interest in taboos such as sex resulted in a number of enquiries into, and limitations upon, their work at selection boards during the war (Churchill, 2010: p. 815). The most contentious site of such negotiations was the psychiatric interview, where psychiatrists assessed soldiers put forward for commission. This chapter analyses the technique of the psychiatric interview at the War
Office Selection Board as the point of intersection between Army authorities, soldiers and psychiatrists: those commissioning science, those subject to the gaze of science and those practising science. Silences in and around the interview punctuated larger discussions around democracy and authority, and who might speak on whose behalf. I begin with a brief summary of how the problems of selecting Army officers were raised and how official silence on what was expected of psychiatrists provided them with the opportunity to experiment in this new field. The use of unofficial spaces for conversations about their work enabled psychiatrists and their supporters to develop their methods until they were sufficiently robust to be accepted by military colleagues. I then discuss the silences in psychiatric interviews themselves. These inter-
views were a key method for selecting officers, and were both literally and metaphorically a place where voices might speak or be silent, through choice or coercion. They thus offered interviewees opportunities for advancement in the Army but also potential for regulation. Finally, I examine who wanted to silence the psychiatrists and limit their interviews, and why. The ‘tightest hand’ was increasingly kept over them, with suspicious Army senior leadership
censoring what psychiatrists were permitted to ask and even attempting to have them completely removed from officer selection work. Psychiatrists attempted to resist such efforts to control their voice. Informal networks, offthe-record conversations and manipulations of omissions in orders and instructions were key to eluding limitations and keeping psychiatrists in the battle for the borders of their discipline.
