MENTAL HYGIENE FOR THE TRAINEE
A Method for Fortifying the Army's Manpower
R. ROBERT COHEN M. C.1
1 U. S. Army
A. This program for mental hygiene appears to have definite practical value in creating rapid normal military adjustment by building up good morale in new trainees.
B. Through a reduction in psychosomatic complaints, 122 to 531 man-hours of training time have been saved during the basic training period of a single company; and in a total of 5 companies tested, 996 man-hours were saved during the basic period training time. If comparable results were obtained by such a program throughout the entire Army, the saving of training time would be enormous. On January 21, 1943, this program was approved for trial conversion into films.
C. This method improved morale not only in the clinical psychosomatic cases but also in the subclinical potential psychosomatic cases, who do not appear for medical relief. This trend was shown by the greater number of Sunday sick calls, smaller number of total sick calls for all causes, less time lost by AWOL's, better grades in training, and by the appreciative responses to the questionnaire in the conditioned experimental groups.
D. This method has produced men who should continue to adjust themselves normally to situations they may meet in the future.
E. By the same token, men in the control groups who were not given the benefit of this conditioning may possibly break down later on.
F. The application of this mental hygiene program should be particularly beneficial to the incoming 18-and 19-year-old inductees. The facilitation of military adjustment through such a program should have a favorable influence on civilian morale as reflected by the letters from these men to their parents.
