Families and Institutions for Shell-Shocked Soldiers in Australia after the First World War (2009)
Since the 1980s, numerous historical studies have provided a complex picture of the relationship between families and psychiatric institutions. Historians of shell-shock have been slow to respond to this literature. Instead, their primary interest has been in the medical treatment of the condition, as well as state and cultural responses. This article offers a fresh perspective on the treatment of shell-shocked soldiers by examining families' involvement in their institutionalisation in Australia after the First World War. It explores how kin mobilised the repatriation discourse of `preference' to secure treatment for veterans in segregated mental hospitals which separated military cases from `confirmed civilian lunatics'. This article argues that by asserting that ex-servicemen were a more deserving class of patient, veterans' kin strategically deployed the stigma of mental illness to ensure better quality care for ex-servicemen, preserve their heroic identity as soldiers, and deflect some of the eugenic shame of `madness'.
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