Human Salvage : Soldiers, Civilians, and Psychiatry in the Second World War

During the Second World War, psychiatrists, psychologists and other experts were confronted with unprecedented numbers of patients. In this first comprehensive analysis of treatment during and after the war, Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen shows how mass violence entered the clinical realm, changing psychiatric theory and practice for decades to come.

During the Second World War, psychiatrists, psychologists, and other experts confronted unprecedented numbers of patients, including distressed servicemen, bombed civilians, unaccompanied children, returning veterans, displaced persons, and Holocaust survivors. In the first comprehensive analysis of treatment during and after the war, Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen examines how British and American experts interpreted and responded to these diverse patient populations. Looking at both combatants and civilians together, she demonstrates that wartime psychiatry was less concerned with individual suffering than with managing mental distress at scale, revealing profound tensions in psychiatric thought over the causes of wartime mental disorder and its treatment. Perhaps most significantly, Human Salvage shows how the Second World War brought mass violence into the clinical realm, transforming psychiatric theory and practice for decades to come.