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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Delusional Psychosis


philary

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My Great Uncle, Corporal Leslie Harold Cifford Sutton was in the Army Service Corps (35th Division). He served in France and Italy. I have a copy of his service records from the PRO and it shows that he applied and was given a pension from the armed forces of 43/4d per week for as long as he remained in the asylum.

In 1925 he was diagnosed with 100% Delusional Psychosis, aggravated by his war service, hence the pension. This was granted after a PEAT assessment. I know from family sources he remained in resedential care for the rest of his life, finally living wih someone in Wales. He died in 1978.

I wonder if any one knows:

1 What is a PEAT assessment?

2 Was Delusional Psychosis a common illness among WW1 soldiers?

I have looked up the medical description of Delusional Psychosis and so feel clear as to its manifestation.

My initial thoughts have been that he might have suffered huge feelings of guilt, because he was the only soldier to return from the 5 members of his family who went to war. 3 of which had young families. Leslie never married and as far as we know had no offspring.

Thank you to anyone who can help

Hilary

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Hello Hilary

Probably best get in touch with member Dragon (Gwynn), she appears to have a great interest and extensive knowledge of mental health issues, with specific regard to WW1.

They say that great stress can bring to the fore any underlying mental imbalances, and this chap appeared to have suffered more than a little before he succumbed.

Cheers

Richard

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They say that great stress can bring to the fore any underlying mental imbalances

They? Who?

*****

Hilary, I have been away and I have only just picked up your email. Please bear with me.

Gwyn

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Without looking it up, I only know what a PEAT assessment is in a modern hospital setting, because I thought it should be carried out in the primate house in which I was most recently hospitalised.

I am pretty sure it didn’t mean the same then.

The BMJ online is a useful research tool, Hilary. http://www.bmj.com

If you click on Search / archive, then key in the words which interest you,, then click Search across multiple journals (after the search box), it will give you many interesting links to professional papers from a wide range of medical literature.

I tend to put the key words into the ‘text and abstract’ box to get the widest results.

Gwyn

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They say that great stress can bring to the fore any underlying mental imbalances

They? Who?

*****

Hilary, I have been away and I have only just picked up your email. Please bear with me.

Gwyn

The voices in my head. :lol:

Arguably, different people - i.e. with different sensibilities and personality traits - can respond to stressful stimuli (in the long term) in markedly different ways. Basic empiricism would seem to corroborate this received wisdom; personal knowledge of situations where one - among a group - is faced by violence also reinforces this belief.

Richard

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The voices in my head.  :lol:

Not funny. Schizophrenia isn't a joke.

Gwyn

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No, it is not. I know from the experience of others; but I find it rather discourteous to have a semi-rhetorical and somewhat pedantic analysis of my posting to another member.

Chalk and Cheese spring to mind!

Let's agree to disagree: read you on another thread. ;)

Cheers

Richard

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That posting referred to me.

Hilary, I will respond privately to your quest for information.

Gwyn

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Dear Gwyn

Thank you, I look forward to your reply. I imagine the guilt feelings suffered by Great Uncle must have been huge, the only one of his family to return. Unfortunately his records whilst he was in Bristol City Mental Hospital are closed for 100 years, even to next of kin.

Interestingly my father-in-law who flew Lancasters in WW2 always said he could never return to his home town of Bargoed without huge feelings of guilt! He was one of the lucky ones who completed their tour of ops! The landing after the final op, one of the crew members got out of the aircraft and was violently sick. The lads were very young, he was 18 when he flew!

Looking forward to hearing from you

Hilary

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Hi John

Bristol City Mental Hospital became Glenside. The records are held at the Bristol Record Office. Yes, all clinical & medical records held by the record office are closed for 100 years from the date of the last entry.

I enquired at Easter and received a very helpful and pleasant letter back from the Senior Archivist who had made quite extensive enquiries including legal ones. Under the Data Protection Act the records cannot be accessed (even when the person is deceased). I appreciate and fully accept the reason why, the information is sensitive.

If you want to know where and what medical records are kept there is a hospital database online with all details, I can't remember where at the moment but will get back to you.

Hilary

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Hi John

I have found out the hospital database. It is through the Public Record Office (PRO), click on catalogues, click on hospital records. Hope this helps. I found out about the 100 year rule from the Bristol Record Office website.

Hilary

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I find it rather discourteous to have a semi-rhetorical and somewhat pedantic analysis of my posting to another member.

I was not carrying out a ‘semi-rhetorical’ analysis of your posting, which, you imply, was a private conversation between you and the writer of the original question. You cited me as a potential source of the information sought by Hilary, therefore drawing me into a thread which I might have viewed but decided to pass by.

I assume that Hilary was seeking information which was based on a level of clinical accuracy; there would be little point in asking the original question otherwise. Your answer constituted hearsay, as you confirm in your later, rather obfuscating, posting: ‘basic empiricism’ and ‘personal knowledge of situations’.

In the interests of rigour, it is legitimate to inquire a source for the statement ‘They say that great stress can bring to the fore any underlying mental imbalances’. A reference would enable Hilary to research it further. It is simplistic to observe that what you term ‘underlying mental imbalances’ may be triggered by stress. Psychosis may have its origins in numerous factors, including genetic make up, damage to the brain, stress, trauma, substances consumed, infections or virus activity. As none of us, other than Hilary, know the man concerned, speculation in an Internet forum is inappropriate.

Whatever issues you might have with me, it is, in my opinion, cruel and cheap to use a symptom of schizophrenia as a joke. I am aware that some people who hear voices regard them as a blessing; for many it is perplexing, frightening, horrifying and even dangerous, when the voices urge harmful behaviours. They can make it next to impossible for a person with schizophrenia to work or to fulfil her potential. Psychotic medications can be a trial in themselves: those which work on dopamine may cause slowness and tardive dyskenesia [uncontrollable mouth and tongue movements]; those which include agents to work on serotonin are kinder, but may make people gain a lot of weight, which in today’s image-conscious society can be devastating. Voices, hallucinations and / or delusions are sometimes present in severe depression, to the distress of sufferers and their carers.

Many people with mental illness say that one of the factors which makes it hardest of all to manage their illness is the lack of understanding shown by society. One aspect of this is jokes made about their symptoms. Across society as a whole, one in every hundred people has a diagnosis of schizophrenia (some will get better); that is 30 users of this Forum. One in ten to fifteen people hear voices at some point in their lives; that is 300 or so Forum users. Who knows what is behind someone’s façade?

There is a poignancy in this thread. It is considered amusing to joke about a symptom of psychosis in response to a serious, valid and interesting question about the medical history of a man who was so mentally ill that he was permanently hospitalised (as people were up to the early 1950s) and locked out of loving human relationships for his entire adult life.

Gwyn

Relevant sources: Rethink; Royal College of Psychiatrists; Mind

Hilary, apologies for the digression. I will email you some information but it will be later this week. Gwyn

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Dear Gwyn

Thank you for your response. Mental illness, whatever form it takes is distressing for carer and sufferer. Before the range of drugs and treatment that is available now, and the greater understanding we have about mental illness, the solution was to shut people away. One has to remember and come to terms and acknowledge that when one thinks of patients' treatment then.

The sadness I feel, is the fact today, we put young people in extremely difficult, tense situations, (eg the present conflict in Iraq), the media exacerbates the situation by publishing material that has not been thoroughly checked and verified. Thus putting our frontline troops under greater pressures. Nobody knows how much any individual will suffer in later life.

My Great Uncle was a quiet, withdrawn person. He found it difficult to communicate with anyone. Happily, in his latter years, he was able to be looked after by a lady at her home in Wales. I know that he passed away at peace.

Hoping to hear from you soon. Thanks once again.

Hilary

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Hilary

A blow to the brain, from whatever cause, can result in an organic psychosis. Psychoses from 'stress' (functional psychoses) are treatable these days, with drugs mostly, as you say.

One of my uncles 'went mad' (his sister Flora's words) during training. This was from a blow to his head. He was discharged from war service in 1916, and ended up in Somerset County Asylum, where he died - from TB. Have just heard that there's a 100 year closure on his records in the Somerset Archives, just like Bristol.

I don't think I'll be around in 2022!

It's good to hear your great uncle Leslie died in peace.

regards

Viv

Uncle Otto in 1909, to the left

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