as a means of conveying suggestions or eliciting forgotten experiences are useful in selected cases, but in the majority they are unnecessary and may even aggravate the symptoms for a time. they do not recommend psycho-analysis in the freudian sense. in the state of convalescence, re-education and suitable occupation of an interesting nature are of great importance. if the patient is unfit for further military service, it is considered that every endeavour should be made to obtain for him suitable employment on his return to active life. return to the fighting line soldiers should not be returned to the fighting line under the following conditions: (1) if the symptoms of neurosis are of such a character that the soldier cannot be treated overseas with a view to subsequent useful employment. (2) if the breakdown is of such severity as to necessitate a long period of rest and treatment in the united kingdom. (3) if the disability is anxiety neurosis of a severe type. (4) if the disability is a mental breakdown or psychosis requiring treatment in a mental hospital. it is, however, considered that many of such cases could, after recovery, be usefully employed in some form of auxiliary military duty. part of the concern was that many british veterans were receiving pensions and had long-term disabilities. by 1939, some 120,000 british ex-servicemen had received final awards for primary psychiatric disability or were still drawing pensions – about 15% of all pensioned disabilities – and another 44,000 or so … were getting pensions for ‘soldier’s heart’ or effort syndrome. there is, though, much that statistics do not show, because in terms of psychiatric effects, pensioners were just the tip of a huge iceberg. war correspondent philip gibbs wrote: something was wrong. they put on civilian clothes again and looked to their mothers and wives very much like the young men who had gone to business in the peaceful days before august 1914. but they had not come back the same men. something had altered in them. they were subject to sudden moods, and queer tempers, fits of profound depression alternating with a restless desire for pleasure. many were easily moved to passion where they lost control of themselves, many were bitter in their speech, violent in opinion, frightening. one british writer between the wars wrote: there should be no excuse given for the establishment of a belief that a functional nervous disability constitutes a right to compensation. this is hard saying. it may seem cruel that those whose sufferings are real, whose illness has been brought on by enemy action and very likely in the course of patriotic service, should be treated with such apparent callousness. but there can be no doubt that in an overwhelming proportion of cases, these patients succumb to ‘shock’ because they get something out of it. to give them this reward is not ultimately a benefit to them because it encourages the weaker tendencies in their character. the nation cannot call on its citizens for courage and sacrifice and, at the same time, state by implication that an unconscious cowardice or an unconscious dishonesty will be rewarded. development of psychiatry at the beginning of world war ii, the term "shell shock" was banned by the british army, though the phrase "postconcussional syndrome" was used to describe similar traumatic responses. society and culture shell shock has had a profound impact in british culture and the popular memory of world war i. at the time, war writers like the poets siegfried sassoon and wilfred owen dealt with shell shock in their work. sassoon and owen spent time at craiglockhart war hospital, which treated shell shock casualties. author pat barker explored the causes and effects of shell shock in her regeneration trilogy, basing many of her characters on real historical figures and drawing on the writings of the first world war poets and the army doctor w. h. r. rivers. modern cases of shell shock although the term "shell shocked" is typically used in discussion of wwi to describe early forms of ptsd, its high-impact explosives-related nature provides modern applications as well. during their deployment in iraq and afghanistan, approximately 380,000 u.s. troops, about 19% of those deployed, were estimated to have sustained brain injuries from explosive weapons and devices. this prompted the u.s. defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) to open up a $10 million study of the blast effects on the human brain. the study revealed that, while the brain remains initially intact immediately after low level blast effects, the chronic inflammation afterwards is what ultimately leads to many cases of shell shock and ptsd.