Forecasting the Incidence of Neurosis in Officers of the Army and the Navy

Abstract

The most important contribution the psychiatrist could make to the selection of officer candidates or of applicants for comparable leading or managerial positions would be the exclusion of potential neurotics. The Report on the Work of Psychologists and Psychiatrists in the services acknowledges and commends the contribution made by psychiatrists to the selection of officers in the Army; but evidence has not yet been published to enable the extent of their particular contribution to the efficiency of the whole procedure to be assessed in measured terms. Other services have not followed the example of the Army. The Admiralty and Civil Service Selection Boards, which were created after the War Office Selection Boards, and have adapted many features of the Army procedure for their own requirements, have decided against employing psychiatrists for this purpose; and the extent to which the War Office Selection Boards make use of psychiatric services for selection has been reduced. The effectiveness of existing psychiatric methods for this kind of work may thus be felt still open to some doubt.