WOMEN & WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1939, Page 10

WOMEN & WAR

STANDING UP TO CONDITIONS ENGLISH DOCTOR'S VIEWS. REACTIONS IN TIMES OF STRESS. In the following article Dr Maurice Wright, 0.8. E., M.D.. gives his views on the possible effect of war on the civilian population. The doctor, in the course of a lecture to the Tavistock Clinic, England, said that in his opinion and from his own experience, women would stand the stress of danger as well, if not better, than men. “I can quite conceive that there will be panic and hysteria. But both panic and hysteria seen in groups or crowds are short-lived reactions, as we saw in the last war. Under terrific bombardment whole battalions succumbed to panic and ran back, but in almost every case they were rallied behind the lines and went forward again steadily into the fighting line free from panic. I believe this will hold good with the civilian population. There will be many who will panic, many who will have hysteria, but the majority of them will recover and carry 0n.... “There is another reaction of the civil population to war that may be very terrible—not anxiety, not panic, but the exhaustion of the faculty to feel anxiety. This is apathy, the stunned apathy which one has read of in populations, particularly when there has been malnutrition, where the stress of bombardment, carnage, and destruction have been very great. This is not a type of panic, but something worse, a deadening of all emotional response, of grief, fear, or joy. I hope we may never see it, because descriptions of its occurrence in large sections of a community are very terrible. “What can be done to help the population to keep their morale under, stress of war? What, at any rate, are the ideals to be aimed at? Evidence, clear evidence, must be given to the mass of the civil population that there is preparedness, that there is organisation; and every man and woman, especially in urban areas, must have a job to do and know where and how to do it.

“After the Napoleonic wars the people of England were at a very low ebb through want, unemployment, and hardship of all kinds. In order to try to lull some of the discontented, the Government ordered the building of more churches, believing or hoping, I suppose, that if the people were encouraged to have faith in a future happiness they might be more tolerant of their present sufferings. “I am not urging this as a Government measure in time of war. I do, however, seriously wonder whether, if we have to experience the horrors of a war on the civil population, the return of some religious belief may not prove to be for many people one of the best defences against anxiety. It has happened before in the history of the world, and may happen again. “During war there is objective cause for fear, there is the risk of loss of life, of property, and of the lives of others; but as war goes on real anxiety becomes transformed into neurotic anxiety, anxiety which persists in both mental and bodily disturbance long after the objective cause for anxiety has been removed, temporarily or permanently. ( “I believe most firmly that the effect of air bombardment will depend not so much on the intensity as on the frequency of the raids. It is continued and not intermittent stress which does the most severe damage to both mind and body. “Perhaps the supreme test of the stability of mind and body is the speed with which complete recovery takes place after the objective cause for anxiety has been moved. There was plenty of evidence of this during the last war. Battalions remained more stable if they could be given frequent, but not too long, periods of rest from the front lines.

“Of course, everyone in the civilian population is not equally anxious. There are, undoubtedly, some types which are much more tolerant of stress and more phlegmatic, and less imaginative. I am not speaking here of bravery or cowardice, which does not depend on whether anxiety is or is not experienced. “In my own opinion, based upon four years’ work with shell-shock patients, not one of us, however phlegmatic, is immune from anxiety. It is just a question of dose. If stress is sufficiently prolonged the most phlegmatic may break down, and when they do the condition is often more severe and lasting than when some tolerance of anxiety has been previously acquired. “If the immediate effects of anxiety are severe, the remote effects on the civilian population will be equally severe. We are only beginning to realise the effect of neurotic anxiety on every function of the body; the effect of real anxiety will be just as serious. As the result of endocrine and sympathetic disturbances, no system is immune—cardiovascular, digestive, or respiratory. “When the destruction of life and property is particularly cruel, insensate, and spares no one, there is one other reaction of the civilian population —blind, unreasoning anger. Even in normal life, anger releases for the lime being the tension of normal anxiety. Under war conditions it may be directed against the authority of the government, or more probably against all or any who may, however unjustly, be suspected of sympathies or any racial affinity with the enemy. This anger may prove a very terrible thing in any population, especially when it is not the result of personal anxiety, but of ocular evidence of'carnage and destruction. I am afraid it leads to the blind demand of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ “Will women stand war conditions as well as men? My own opinion and my own experience is that they will stand the stress of danger as well, if not better, than men, but that we must give them an outlet for their material protective instinct. To many women their menfolk are their children, and they will stand the stress better if they are not separated from them. Evacuation may be, probably must be, necessary, but I should not like to have the handling of a big camp of women whose menfolk, 50 miles away, were under daily bombardment. “Secondly, what is the effect of war anxiety on children? Curiously enough, there is good evidence that they 'are more unset, at least at first, by the

separation from, or by the emotional disturbance of, their parents and family, than they are by the actual war situations. It is still more important that children, if evacuated, should remain in groups familiar to them —such as school classes —and under familiar authority. In such circumstances experience shows that children may show few signs of anxiety “However great the maiming and loss of life, in the end it will be less disastrous than the result of anxiety, if this is severe and prolonged. Not only will there be countless damaged lives, individuals cut off from full happiness and enjoyment, but there will be a heritage which can, I believe, affect generations to come.”