“The magazine is to fulfil a two-fold function. On the one hand it provides a means for the expression of two further activities – the wielding of pen and pencil; while, on the other, it acts as the link between each and every activity.”
-The Hydra Hospital Magazine, New Series Vol. 1 (p.2)
“Capt. Brock had some difficulty in choosing his favourite book. He decided at length in favour of “Actions and Reactions.” He said to me: “I have never read the book, but the title is suggestive. I should imagine that the writer deals with the ‘Art of Doing.’ Action, action, and again action is what we want, as he no doubt points out. To act well is to be well.”
-The Hydra Hospital Magazine, New Series Vol. 2 (p.13)
During the First World War, the Craiglockhart Hydropathic in Edinburgh was converted into a psychiatric hospital to treat shell shock among officers. One of the doctors at Craiglockhart, Arthur Brock, advanced a method called “ergotherapy.” He theorized that shell shock arose when the patient lost contact with his environment, and that the cure consisted of enabling the patient to reestablish his connection with his surroundings. Brock drew on the classical Greek legend of Antaeus – “When wrestling with fate (in the shape of Hercules) he only prevailed so long as he kept his feet on his Mother Earth, but failing this contact, he was crushed to death in mid-air” (286). Like Antaeus, the shell-shocked soldiers had lost contact with the Earth, and to regain their powers needed to ground themselves.
One of the activities available at the hospital was the in-house magazine, The Hydra, which ran from 1917 to 1918, and was produced by patients. The contributors included the patients and staff of the hospital, as well as outside contributions. Two of the most famous contributors to The Hydra were the war poets Wilfred Owen (who edited several issues) and Siegfried Sassoon. The magazine consisted of reports of the various clubs, societies, and events at the hospital, including the debating society, music recitals, the exploits of the Field Club, and sports. In addition, the magazine published creative works, such as poems and short stories. The Hydra therefore had a double function – as a record of the ergotherapy practiced in the hospital, as well as being a form of ergotherapy itself. In its multifaceted nature, the journal lived up to its title. As the editorial of the first issue proclaimed, “The name of the journal will indicate what we wish its character to be: many headed-many sided” (2).
What is particularly interesting, however, is that for a journal engaged in a cure by writing, there is very little mention in the contents of the journal of shell shock, the very affliction that had brought the patients to Craiglockhart. There are some sparse references to illness. For instance, Wilfred Owen’s editorial in the 1 September 1917 issue playfully claims, “Many of us who came to the Hydro slightly ill are now getting dangerously well” (2). The tone of the journal is often light, with many jokes scattered throughout the contents. This stands in marked contrast to the talking cure, which would involve talking through the trauma. The historian Dominic Hibberd contrasts the method of Brock with one of the other Craiglockhart doctors, W. H. R. Rivers – “Rivers believed in therapy through conversation. Brock had less time for talking; his patients had to work” (380). It is worth noting, then, that the use of the writing cure did not necessarily have to involve writing about the trauma, but that the act of writing in and of itself, regardless of the specific content, may have had therapeutic value.
Works Cited
Brock, Arthur. Health and Conduct. Williams and Norgate, 1923.
Hibberd, Dominic. “A Sociological Cure for Shellshock: Dr. Brock and Wilfred Owen.” The Sociological Review, vol 25, no. 2, 1977, pp. 377-386.
“The Hydra.” Edinburgh Napier University. https://www.napier.ac.uk/about-us/our-location/our-campuses/special-collections/war-poets-collection/the-hydra. Accessed 5 November 2023.
Image Credit:
World War I: a hospital in a church. Charcoal drawing. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/zfm8sdey
