The Defence Forces are reported to be looking for a psychiatrist. No one applied for the role when it was advertised last year. Are you surprised?
Hearing of this, we thought it was a good time to repeat what Sir Winston Churchill wrote about psychiatrists. His words are as applicable today as they were when he wrote them in December 1942. He wrote:
“I am sure it would be sensible to restrict as much as possible the work of these gentleman, who are capable of doing an immense amount of harm with what may very easily degenerate into charlatanry. The tightest hand should be kept over them, and they should not be allowed to quarter themselves in large numbers upon the Fighting Services at the public expense. There are no doubt easily recognisable cases which may benefit from treatment of this kind, but it is wrong to disturb large numbers of healthy, normal men and women by asking the kind of odd questions in which the psychiatrists specialise. There are quite enough hangers-on and camp followers already.”