Skip to main content

Neurosis (Discharged Soldiers)

Volume 387: debated on Tuesday 23 March 1943

The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.

10.

asked the Secretary of State for War how many cases there are of soldiers being discharged from the Army unfit on account of neurosis?

I regret that it is not in the public interest to give the figures, but I can inform my hon. Friend that the proportion of men invalided from the Army suffering from neurosis was in 1942 about 17 per cent. of the number invalided out of the Army in that year on account of all diseases.

Is it not possible for the Army Medical Service completely to drop this term "neurosis," which is a vague and nebulous term used in order to deprive a large number of men of pensions?

I do not want to be misunderstood. In the matter of medical terminology the best motto is to observe the rule that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

Are these men treated by Army psychologists before their discharge?