ABSTRACT

The psychiatric cost of Britain’s post-war counter-insurgency campaigns have gone largely un-investigated. Focusing on the Malayan Emergency, this article will show that counter-insurgency operations were sufficiently intense to produce what were conceptualised as cases of mild psychoneurosis. These conditions were managed using convalescence and simple psychotherapy. Managing these conditions in this way risked leaving more serious conditions untreated and meant recorded cases of psychoneurosis were kept artificially low. That the stresses of the counter-insurgency in Malaya were reproduced elsewhere suggests there was a wider psychiatric cost of Britain’s post-war period of decolonisation.

摘要

英国战后反叛乱运动的精神成本基本上没有得到调查。本文将关注马来亚紧急情况，将表明反叛乱行动的强度足以产生被概念化为轻度精神神经症的病例。这些情况是通过康复期和简单的心理治疗来管理的。以这种方式管理这些疾病有可能使更严重的疾病得不到治疗，并且意味着记录的精神神经症病例被人为地保持在低水平。马来亚反叛乱的压力在其他地方重现，这表明英国战后非殖民化时期的精神成本更高。