Karl Menninger

This article is about the psychiatrist. For the mathematician, see Karl Menninger (mathematics).

For other people named Menninger, see Menninger (disambiguation).

Karl Augustus Menninger
Born	July 22, 1893(1893-07-22) Topeka, Kansas, United States
Died	July 18, 1990(1990-07-18) (aged 96)
Occupation	Psychiatrist
Spouse	Grace Gaines Jeanetta Lyle
Children	Julia Menninger Gottesman Robert Gaines Menninger Martha Menninger Nichols Rosemary Menninger (adopted)
Parents	Charles Frederick Menninger Florence Vesta Menninger
Relatives	Will Menninger (brother) Edwin A Menninger (brother) Ann Gottesman (granddaughter)

Karl Augustus Menninger (July 22, 1893 – July 18, 1990), was an American psychiatrist and a member of the famous Menninger family of psychiatrists who founded the Menninger Foundation and the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.

Biography

Born in Topeka, Kansas, Menninger attended Washburn University, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was accepted to Harvard Medical School, 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 Society.

Beginning with an internship in Kansas City, he worked at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital 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. Menninger, who played a leading role in the US Army's psychiatric work, also later joined them.

The Menninger Foundation was established In 1941. After World War II, 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 Research.

In 1967 Chaim Potok quotes Menninger in the dedication page of The Chosen. In 1981 Menniger was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by Jimmy Carter.

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; punishment 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 demonic oppression and/or possession as a possible answer to many of the unknowns that could not be explained through science, especially in the area of schizophrenia. He correlated this finding biblically and collaborated with the late Catholic Archbishop Fulton Sheen of New York.^{[citation needed]}

Letter to Thomas Szasz

Karl Menninger with his wife in 1974

On October 6, 1988, less than two years before his death, Karl Menninger wrote a letter to Thomas Szasz, author of The Myth of Mental Illness.

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.^{[citation needed]} 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.

See also

• Menninger Foundation
• Reinisch Rose Garden and Doran Rock Garden

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

• Biography of Karl Menninger
• Bartleby article on Karl Menninger
• Scottish Rite Journal Obituary
• Karl Menninger in Menninger Family Archives from Kansas State Historical Society
• Correspondence with Thomas Szasz