Bryce is described as very popular with his patients. He was a good, all-round sportsman who hated military etiquette (he had been temporarily commissioned to the RAMC and never settled to military life) and spoke to his staff as equals rather than as an 'officer' to the 'lower ranks'. He was a Fifer and was appointed first Commandant of the Craiglockhart War Hospital in October 1916.
However, in October 1917, Bryce was replaced as Commandant by William Brown after a General from the War Office had inspected Craiglockhart and was outraged at the lack of military discipline and standards. Bryce was so popular that many of the staff resigned in protest at his removal.
Brown had worked in France with Charles Meyers and he believed that the shell shocked soldiers were 'weak' and deficient of nerve and stamina. Brown regarded his patients as inferior and he implied that they were to blame for their breakdowns. He did share Rivers' idea that the cause of the soldiers' breakdowns was due to repression of emotion and fear. Brown used hypnosis to put the patients back in the situation which had stressed them and had them relive the event. This is called 'abreaction' which is working through the repressed emotion.
