Medicine: Psychology at Work

The high wire fences of Camp Elliott, Calif, take in 40 square miles of desert scrublands northeast of San Diego, and keep in 885 grey-uniformed men who have been sentenced for a set term in the U.S. Naval Retraining Command—the Navy’s equivalent of a reformatory. Be havior problems one and all, the men have gone AWOL, committed thefts or sexual offenses, assaulted superiors or somehow violated one of the hundreds of “Rocks and Shoals” (Navy Regulations). In their state of military purgatory they run through a routine of work details, formations, exercise and orientation lectures. When their time is up (average: six months), about half go back to duty. For the others: dishonorable or other qualified discharge.

But this process, probably the most enlightened punishment in the long history of naval discipline, is wasteful: the Navy would like to make it all unnecessary by learning how to spot in advance the recruit who will go over the hill or sock the skipper. Also, since some bad apples will always get through, it would like to be able to look at each and decide whether the canker of bad conduct can be cut out so that the offender can safely be returned to duty.

Hub of the World. To this end, the Navy has established a squad of civilian psychologists at Camp Elliott, to work with selected inmates to find out what makes the problem sailor or marine break step. Head of the squad is James Douglas Grant, 37, a burly, six-foot Stanford graduate, with an infectious grin and a saddle-tanned bald head, who has three immediate aides but can draw on the help of Camp Elliott’s 400-man staff if he needs it. Grant’s first problem was to find a yardstick for his research. “A man’s intelligence quotient is of no value here,” says Grant, “because intelligence isn’t what helps a person in getting along with others. To measure ability to ‘get along,’ we hit on a social integration scale, I-1 to I-7.

“Most I-15 are in mental hospitals; an I-2 believes that he is the hub of the world, which exists to take care of him. An I-3 knows that something is expected of him, but hopes to find an angle or gimmick to get around it. I-4 knows better than this, but feels inadequate and doesn’t know what to do with that part of himself that fails to come up to his ideal of a strong and capable man. I-5 knows that he has a strong side, a protective side and a side that can weep. Most of us are either I-5s or else I-4s struggling to become Iss. An I-6 would be no problem here, and I-7, the perfect man, doesn’t exist.”

Plenty of Rope. Grant is first to admit that no two men are alike, even in “I-3ness.” But the studies to date show that an I-2 or I-3 is likely to get into trouble: “He is relatively immature. And he’s imperturbable. He doesn’t care what others think of him, and before long the others lock him up. He doesn’t care even then. An I-4 in civilian life doesn’t have too much trouble. He gets sore at the boss, swears at him and quits, and is all right again. But you can’t do that in the Navy or the Marines.”

Grant forms volunteer retrainees into close-knit groups of 20 men who spend all their waking and sleeping hours with the same group. Says Grant: “Group living puts pressure on them. Now each is living with 19 others who have the same outlook. His opportunities to blame someone else are minimized. You give him rope, finally make him aware that he’s hanging himself.” The one essential that all Elliott inmates have in common is their tendency to act out antisocial behavior which most people express in words, or repress within themselves. “Acting-out” problem cases have been regarded as almost hopeless, but Grant believes he has found a way to treat them: keep the subject concerned about and facing his problems. In bull sessions, with a Marine sergeant in charge, all members of the group are encouraged to talk out their problems. Even their juvenile bragging is often highly informative.

Room for Hope. More revealing are the psychological interviews. Private L. of the Marine Corps was in for having struck two NCOs, one of them simply because he did not feel like putting a rifle together as ordered. His admission: “I can’t live with a lot of people. They disgust me and I just feel like taking off.” Private L.’s only goal seemed to be solitude; he had no dates, and even drank to “sit by myself and just drink and think.” An I-2 tagged as “emotionally immature, aggressive,” Private L. fully expected that he would get into trouble again when he returned to duty. Grant agreed.

Radioman M. was different. He had committed aggravated assault, under the influence of so much alcohol that he could not remember his offense, and therefore could not feel guilty about it. Explained Psychologist Grant’s assistant, Virginia Ives: “The alcoholism was only a symptom. M. had an idealistic, religious mother and an alcoholic, atheistic father. In a typical I-4 conflict, M. saw himself wavering between wanting to be like his mother and like his father. In a group therapy session he saw others struggling with similar problems of ideals and behavior. He gained considerable insight into his own conflict and was able to see that, while he had derived something from both his father and his mother, his own identity must be separate from either. He was moving toward an I-5’s tolerance of ambivalence.”

Nobody could yet say whether M.’s change was permanent, but his chances looked good. In his first five months back on duty, he conscientiously followed instructions and sent two reports on his activities back to Elliott.

Big Turnaround. In about nine years the Navy has tried to retrain 48,000 problem personnel, succeeded in restoring 14,000 to duty—enough to man four big aircraft carriers. Last week the Elliott psychology project was being studied at the Navy’s two other retraining commands, Portsmouth, N.H. and Norfolk, Va., to see whether this rate can be bettered.

Psychologist Grant and co-workers are not ready to claim great successes. But they have found a booster in an unexpected quarter. Confessed a veteran Marine sergeant assigned to Camp Elliott guard duty: “This program is a big turn around for us. We used to treat ’emrough in the brig so they wouldn’t come back. When we came here, we felt we didn’t give a damn about these people and never could. But we’re all changing. I know my attitude has changed.”