War Neurosis

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WAR NEUROSIS

Freud's interest, and that of his disciples, in war neurosis (névrose de guerre ) developed during the First World War (1915b). The first psychoanalysts had an opportunity to observe and to monitor many patients presenting such distinctive symptoms as paralyses, tremors, recurring nightmares, the loss of sexual desire, and the like, all related to the experience of war. Observations and debate on these cases were presented in 1918 to the Fifth International Congress in Budapest, by Freud, Sándor Ferenczi, Karl Abraham, Ernst Simmel and Ernest Jones. As well as the scientific interest in these pathologies there was a need to prove to detractors of psychoanalysis (who were only too happy to see a picture of neurosis emerge that left, according to them, no room for the unconscious) that war neurosis had in effect a definite kinship with transference neuroses and hysteria.

The common denominator would be trauma, which acts by breaching the psychic apparatus, and which may appear either from the outside (traumatic neurosis) or even from the inside (transference neurosis) of the subject. In every case the trauma consists of too great a quantity of excitation, which ruptures the protective shield system, the psychic envelope. Generally the symptoms appear after a clear interval and take hold as a defense against anxiety.

From this period on, psychoanalysts have demonstrated that trauma acts as a precipitating factor, revealing a pre-existing neurotic structure; war then being the second instance or the "afterwardsness" of an infantile trauma. (Afterwardsness is Jean Laplanche's neologism to translate après coup and Nachträglichkeit into English. Deferred action is the term used frequently in the Standard Edition.) The symptoms (rumination over the traumatic event, recurring nightmares, insomnia) appear as repeated attempts to bind and abreact the trauma.

As the issue of the psychic after-effects of war is always unfortunately topical, these works are used as a benchmark for the teams who organize the treatment of war victims in their countries, as the articles of Marie-Rose Moro testify. But furthermore there is a line of thought that results today in "Post Traumatic Stress Disorders," and which breaks, unfortunately, with metapsychological topography and with the theory of afterwardsness.

Alain de Mijolla

See also: Germany; Kardiner, Abram; Neurosis; Simmel, Ernst; Tavistock Clinic; Trauma; Traumatic neurosis.

Bibliography

Ferenczi, Sándor. (1980). Two types of war neuroses. In Further contributions to the theory and technique of psychoanalysis (pp. 124-141; John Rickman, Ed.; Jane Isabel Suttie et al, Trans.). New York: Brunner/Mazel. (Original work published 1916/1917).

Ferenczi, Sándor, Abraham, Karl, Simmel, Ernst, and Jones, Ernest. (1921). Psychoanalysis and the war neuroses (The International Psychoanalytical Library, No. 2). London: International Psychoanalytical Press.

Freud, Sigmund. (1919d). Introduction to "Psycho-analysis and the war neuroses." SE, 17: 205-210.

Moro, Marie-Rose. (1998), L'enfant en situation de guerre ou de catastrophe, réflexion préliminaire et Soutien psychologique auprès des ex-détenus bosniaques musulmans et de leur famille, Médecins sans frontières. Medical News, 7,2.