Karl Augustus Menninger (July 22, 1893 – July 18, 1990), was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
psychiatristA psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
and a member of the famous Menninger family of
psychiatristA psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
s who founded the
Menninger FoundationThe Menninger Foundation was founded in 1919 by the Menninger family in Topeka, Kansas, and consists of a clinic, a sanatorium, and a school of psychiatry, all of which bear the Menninger name. In 2003, the Menninger Clinic moved to Houston. The foundation was started by Drs. Karl, Will, and...
and the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.
Karl Augustus Menninger (July 22, 1893 – July 18, 1990), was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
psychiatristA psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
and a member of the famous Menninger family of
psychiatristA psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
s who founded the
Menninger FoundationThe Menninger Foundation was founded in 1919 by the Menninger family in Topeka, Kansas, and consists of a clinic, a sanatorium, and a school of psychiatry, all of which bear the Menninger name. In 2003, the Menninger Clinic moved to Houston. The foundation was started by Drs. Karl, Will, and...
and the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.
Biography
Born in
Topeka, KansasTopeka |Kansa]]: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...
, Menninger attended
Washburn UniversityWashburn University is a co-educational, public institution of higher learning in Topeka, Kansas, USA. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as professional programs in law and business. Washburn has 550 faculty members, who teach more than 6,400 undergraduate students and...
,
Indiana UniversityIndiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...
, and the
University of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
. He was accepted to
Harvard Medical SchoolHarvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
, where he graduated cum laude in 1917. While at Washburn, he was a member of the Alpha Delta Fraternity, a local group, and in 1960 inducted into the school's
Sagamore Honor SocietyThe Sagamore Society is the most exclusive honor society for men at Washburn University. Sagamore is not as controversial or as secretive as Yale's Skull and Bones but its members are known to include a governor, a member of Congress, two Army generals, and several judges, doctors and corporate...
.
Beginning with an internship in Kansas City, he worked at the
Boston Psychopathic HospitalThe Boston Psychopathic Hospital was the first mental health hospital in Massachusetts, USA.-History of the establishment:In November 1909 the site for the hospital was purchased on Fenwood Road, 5 minutes' walk from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Elmer E. Southard was appointed director of the...
and taught at Harvard Medical School. In 1919 Menninger returned to Topeka where, together with his father, Charles Frederick Menninger, he founded the Menninger Clinic. By 1925, he had attracted enough investors to build the Menninger Sanitarium. His book,
The Human Mind appeared in 1930. In 1952 Karl Targownik, who would become one of his closest friends, joined the Clinic. His brother,
William C. MenningerWilliam Claire Menninger was a co-founder with his brother Karl and his father of The Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, which is an internationally known center for treatment of behavioral disorders.-Boy Scouts:...
, who played a leading role in the US Army's psychiatric work, also later joined them.
The
Menninger FoundationThe Menninger Foundation was founded in 1919 by the Menninger family in Topeka, Kansas, and consists of a clinic, a sanatorium, and a school of psychiatry, all of which bear the Menninger name. In 2003, the Menninger Clinic moved to Houston. The foundation was started by Drs. Karl, Will, and...
was established In 1941. After
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Karl Menninger was instrumental in founding the Winter Veterans Administration Hospital, in Topeka. It became the largest psychiatric training center in the world. He was among the first members of the
Society for General Systems ResearchThe Society for General Systems Research is predecessor of the current International Society for the Systems Sciences , known to be one the first interdisciplinary and international co-operations in the field of systems theory and systems science...
.
In 1967
Chaim PotokChaim Potok was an American Jewish author and rabbi. Potok is most famous for his first book The Chosen, a 1967 novel which was listed on The New York Times’ best seller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies.-Biography :Herman Harold Potok was born in The Bronx, New York City, to...
quotes Menninger in the dedication page of
The ChosenThe Chosen is a novel written by Chaim Potok. It was published in 1969. It follows the main character Reuven Malter and his friend Daniel Saunders, as they grow up in New York in the 1940s. A sequel featuring Reuven's young adult years is titled The Promise.-Plot:The Chosen is set in the 1900s, in...
. In 1981 Menniger was awarded the
Presidential Medal of FreedomThe Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
, by
Jimmy CarterJames Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
.
Work
During his career, Menninger wrote a number of influential books. In his first book,
The Human Mind, Menninger argued that psychiatry was a science and that the mentally ill were only slightly different than healthy individuals. In
The Crime of Punishment, Menninger argued that crime was preventable through psychiatric treatment;
punishmentPunishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....
was a brutal and inefficient relic of the past. He advocated treating offenders like the mentally ill.
His subsequent books include
The Vital Balance,
Man Against Himself and
Love Against Hate.
Position on insanity
In his publications, Menninger offered
demoncall - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
ic oppression and/or
possessionDemonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...
as a possible answer to many of the unknowns that could not be explained through science, especially in the area of
schizophreniaSchizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
. He correlated this finding
biblicallyThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
and collaborated with the late Catholic Archbishop Fulton Sheen of New York.
Letter to Thomas Szasz
On October 6, 1988, less than two years before his death, Karl Menninger wrote a letter to
Thomas SzaszThomas Stephen Szasz is a psychiatrist and academic. Since 1990 he has been Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He is a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social...
, author of
The Myth of Mental IllnessThe Myth Of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct is a controversial book by Thomas Szasz and published in 1961. It is highly influential in the anti-psychiatry movement...
.
In the letter Menninger says that he has just read Szasz's book
Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences. Menninger wrote that neither of them liked the situation in which insanity separates men from men and free will is forgotten. After recounting the lack of scientific method in psychology over the years, Menninger expressed his regret that he did not come over to a dialogue with Szasz. Menninger writes the terms
diagnosis,
patients and
treatment in quotes, suggesting that he had agreed to some extent with Szasz's arguments that psychiatric diagnosis is a medical fraud, psychiatric patients are prisoners and psychiatric treatments are tortures. Menninger's letter suggests he had been much closer to Szasz on issues in psychiatry than one might have suspected from reading Szasz's criticisms of Menninger.
- Karl Menniger's letter (referred to above) as well as Thomas Szasz's response to Dr. Menniger can be found on Dr. Szasz's web site. Here's the letter.
Publications
Menninger has written several books and articles. A selection:
- 1930. The Human Mind. Garden City, NY: Garden City Pub. Co.
- 1931. From Sin to Psychiatry, an Interview on the Way to Mental Health with Dr. Karl A. Menninger [by] L. M. Birkhead. Little Blue Books Series #1585. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Press.
- 1938. Man Against Himself. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
- 1950. Guide to Psychiatric Books; with a Suggested Basic Reading List. New York: Grune & Stratton.
- 1952. Manual for Psychiatric Case Study. New York: Grune & Stratton.
- 1958. Theory of Psychoanalytic Technique. New York: Basic Books.
- 1959. A Psychiatrist’s World: Selected Papers. New York: Viking Press.
- 1963. The Vital Balance: The Life Process in Mental Health and Illness. New York: Viking Penguin.
- 1968. Das Leben als Balance; seelische Gesundheit und Krankheit im Lebensprozess. München: R. Piper.
- 1968. The Crime of Punishment. New York: Penguin Books.
- 1972. A Guide to Psychiatric Books in English [by] Karl Menninger. New York: Grune & Stratton.
- 1973. Whatever Became of Sin?. New York: Hawthorn Books.
- 1978. The Human Mind Revisited: Essays in Honor of Karl A. Menninger. Edited by Sydney Smith. New York: International Universities Press.
- 1985. Conversations with Dr. Karl Menninger (sound recording)
External links