The Repression of War Experience

The Repression of War Experience

A speech, later published, based on W.H.R. Rivers' experiences treating men like Siegfried Sassoon at Craiglockhart Hospital.

In this speech, given in front of the Royal Society of Medicine, Rivers explains the process of being shell-shocked as repression, a means of obscuring mental content from memory and rendering memory inaccessible. However, when trauma was incompletely obscured or when repression takes place in circumstances which continue the process of traumatization, troubling symptoms indicated that the trauma remained. He recounts several case studies in which men suffered from incomplete repression of war memories: in one case, a young officer was haunted by nightmares of his friend, who he had seen on the field of battle, blown into pieces. In another, a man was seized with paralyzing dread and dissociation when he tried to think of France. Rivers cautions doctors to assess such cases in an individual manner, to avoid the clearing of soldiers as fit for service when they might still be experiencing traumatic responses.

W. H. R. Rivers

Rivers WHR. The Repression of War Experience. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 1918;11(Sect_Psych):1-20. doi:10.1177/003591571801101501

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine

December 4, 1917

Craiglockhart Hospital