Exactly!

“'So the loss of memory applies to the later part of your service in France, but the early part - the first six months or so - is comparatively clear?'

'Ye-es.'

Rivers sat back in his chair. 'Would you like to tell me something about that early part?'

'No.'

'But do you remember it?'

'Doesn't mean I want to talk about it.' He looked round the room. 'I don't see why it has to be like this anyway.'

'Like what?'

'All the questions from you, all the answers from me. Why can't it be both ways?'

'Look, Mr Prior, if you went to the doctor with bronchitis and he spent half the consultation telling you about his lumbago, you would not be pleased. Would you?'

'No, but if I went to my doctor in despair it might help to know he at least understood the meaning of the word.'

'Are you in despair?'

Prior sighed, ostentatiously impatient.

'You know, I talk to a lot of people who are in despair or very close to it, and my experience is that they don't care what their doctor feels. That's the whole point about despair, isn't it? That you turn it on yourself.'

'Well, all I can say is I'd rather talk to a real person than a strip of empathic wallpaper.'"

Pat Barker, Regeneration