HOW PSYCHIATRIC-SYMPTOMS VARIED IN WORLD-WAR-I AND WORLD-WAR-II

Psychiatric syndromes may be differentially expressed according to cultural expectation. An examination of the literature reveals a predominance of conversion symptoms in World War I and a relative decrease among World War II neuropsychiatric casualties. In the latter conflict, by contrast, ''combat exhaustion'' and psychosomatic disorders comprised the majority of non-psychotic psychiatric casualties. Determinants of this changing ''vocabulary of distress'' are discussed.