PSYCHOSES IN NAVAL OFFICERS: A PLEA FOR PSYCHIATRIC SELECTION

Great and deserved emphasis has been placed on the psychiatric selection of enlisted personnel but officer candidates of the Naval Reserve are still appointed without the benefit of any special psychiatric examination. Prospective officers are subjected to painstaking investigations and thorough physical examinations, and these procedures have been so effective that the incidence of psychoses in officers is far below that encountered among enlisted men. Despite this good record, a substantial number of officers with gross psychiatric defects in personality or background have been commissioned under the present method of officer selection. A study of a statistically valid series of such officers, who have developed psychoses requiring treatment at St. Elizabeths Hospital, reveals a surprisingly high number with histories of previous hospitalizations for mental illness, prolonged neuropsychiatric treatment or obvious emotional instability and inadequacy. It is believed that most of these could have been eliminated with even a minimal psychiatric investigation. The importance of psychiatric selection of naval officer personel can hardly be overemphasized when the possibilities for catastrophe, the grave damage to morale and great loss of time, training and money is considered.