William Halse Rivers Rivers

William Halse Rivers Rivers was a British physician, neurologist and anthropologist who conducted influential fieldwork in the Torres Strait and Melanesia. During the First World War he treated officers suffering from psychological trauma, including Siegfried Sassoon, and advocated therapeutic engagement rather than simple punishment or repression.

In Pat Barker’s Regeneration, Rather than court-martial him, the army classifies his protest as evidence of mental illness and places him under the care of W. H. R. Rivers. In Pat Barker’s The Eye in the Door, W. H. R. Rivers treats Prior and other officers while the public campaign led by Noel Pemberton Billing turns homosexuality and dissent into evidence of German conspiracy. Other novels featuring William Halse Rivers Rivers include Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road.