Editing Karl Menninger

{{Short description|American psychiatrist}}
{{About|the psychiatrist|the mathematician|Karl Menninger (mathematics)}}

{{Infobox person
| birth_name         = Karl Augustus Menninger
| image              = Eleanor Roosevelt and Doctor Karl Menninger in Topeka, Kansas - NARA - 195432.jpg
| caption            = Karl Menninger with former [[First Lady of the United States|First Lady]] [[Eleanor Roosevelt]], February 1959
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1893|7|22|mf=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Topeka, Kansas]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1990|7|18|1893|7|22}}
| death_place        = Topeka, Kansas, U.S.
| other_names        = 
| known_for          = 
| occupation         = Psychiatrist
| spouse             = {{plainlist|
* Grace Gaines
* Jeanetta Lyle
}}
| children           = 4
| relatives          = [[Will Menninger]] (brother)
}}
'''Karl Augustus Menninger''' (July 22, 1893 &ndash; July 18, 1990) was an American [[psychiatrist]], author, and activist.

He was a member of the Menninger family of psychiatrists who founded the [[Menninger Foundation]] and the [[Menninger Clinic]] in [[Topeka, Kansas]].

He wrote many books including ''The Human Mind'' (1930), ''Man Against Himself'' (1938), ''Love Against Hate'' (1942), ''The Vital Balance'' (1963) and ''The Crime of Punishment'' (1968).

During his life he advocated for a number of causes including children suffering from abuse or neglect, Native Americans, women's rights, prisoners, the elderly, the environment, wildlife, and against nuclear weapons.<ref name=Cerney>Cerney, Mary S. “Karl A. Menninger (1893-1990).” American Psychologist, vol. 46, no. 10, Oct. 1991, p. 1082. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.46.10.1082.</ref>

Despite being one of the most famous psychiatrists during his time, he was an outsider to mainstream psychiatry, calling the [[Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders#DSM-II (1968)|DSM-II]] a modern “Witches Hammer Manual”<ref name="Devonis">Devonis, D. C., & Triggs, J. (2017). Prison break: Karl Menninger’s The Crime of Punishment and its reception in U.S. psychology. History of Psychology, 20(1), 92–121. https://doi.org/10.1037/hop0000051</ref>

==Early life==
Menninger was born on July 22, 1893, in Topeka, Kansas, the son of Florence Vesta (Kinsley) and [[Charles Frederick Menninger]]. In addition to studying at [[Washburn University]], [[Indiana University Bloomington|Indiana University]] and the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison]], he also studied medicine at [[Harvard Medical School]]. He graduated from the school [[Latin honors|''cum laude'']] in 1917.<ref name=KHSKarl>{{cite web |url=http://www.kshs.org/camp/units/view/223900 |title=Papers of Karl Augustus Menninger |publisher=Kansas Historical Society |access-date=July 6, 2015 |quote=Karl Augustus Menninger was born in Topeka, Kansas on July 22, 1893, the eldest of three sons born to Charles Frederick and Flo Knisely Menninger.}}</ref> While at Washburn, he was a member of the Alpha Delta Fraternity, a local group. In 1960 he was inducted into the school's [[Sagamore Honor Society]].

After his internship and his service as part of the Naval Reserve during World War I, Menninger worked at the [[Boston Psychopathic Hospital]] under [[Elmer Ernest Southard]] while also teaching neuropathology at Harvard Medical School. He would remain until the death of Southard in 1919<ref name="Obit">{{cite news |title=Karl Menninger, 96, Dies; Leader in U.S. Psychiatry |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/19/obituaries/karl-menninger-96-dies-leader-in-us-psychiatry.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=July 19, 1990 |access-date= October 25, 2013}}</ref>

==Menninger Clinic, Foundation and School==
In 1919, he returned to Topeka where, together with his father,<ref name=Friedman>{{cite book|last=Friedman|first=Lawrence J.|title=Menninger: The Family and the Clinic|year=1992|publisher=University Press of Kansas|location=Lawrence, KS|isbn=0700605134|pages=[https://archive.org/details/menningerfamilyc00frie/page/504 504]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/menningerfamilyc00frie/page/504}}</ref> he founded the Menninger Clinic. By 1925, they had attracted enough investors, including brother William C. Menninger, to build the Menninger Sanitarium. <ref name=Gaylord>{{cite web |url=https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/karl-menninger/17218 |title=Karl Menninger |last=Gaylord |first=Kristina |date=July 2011 |website=Kansapedia |publisher=Kansas Historical Society |access-date=July 6, 2015 |quote=In 1925 Will Menninger joined his father and brother in the practice, which they renamed the Menninger Sanitarium, and relocated to a 20-acre site.}}</ref>

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. <ref name=KHSociety>[http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/karl-menninger/17218 Karl Menninger] (Kansas Historical Society). Accessed December 3, 2014.</ref>

While the clinic housed Freudian analysts, there was no commitment to any one form of therapy and a belief in the therapeutic value of a warm and caring environment.<ref name="Obit"/>

In 1946 he founded the Menninger School of Psychiatry. He would serve as the dean until 1970.<ref name="Benson">Alvin K. Benson. "Karl A. Menninger" Literary Masters & Their Works. Salem Press</ref> It was renamed in his honor in 1985 as the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry and Mental Health Science. In 1952, [[Karl Targownik]], who would become one of his closest friends, joined the Clinic.

==Other Psychiatric Work==
In 1930, he wrote his first book ''The Human Mind'', where he argued that psychiatry was a science and that the [[mentally ill]] were only slightly different from healthy individuals.{{citation needed|date=March 2025}}

From 1941-1942 he would serve a term as the president of the [[American Psychoanalytic Association]] (APsA).<ref>[https://www.washburn.edu/reference/cks/mapping/menninger/index.html "Karl Menninger"] IN: Map of Kansas Literature. </ref>

In his 1963 book, ''The Vital Balance'', he and his co-authors disagreed with diagnoses as they existed in psychiatry. While not going as far as saying mental illness is a myth, the book talked about mental disorganization as more generalized and more recoverable than was seen in mainstream psychiatry.<ref>TIME Magazine, vol. 82, no. 22, Nov. 1963, p. 53. EBSCOhost.</ref>

He was considered an outsider to mainstream psychiatry, for example calling the 1968 DSM-II a modern “[[Malleus Maleficarum|Witches Hammer Manual]]”.<ref name="Devonis" /> He also, despite calling himself "more [[Freudian]] than Freud" was not particularly attached to doctrine from that tradition, referring to organized psychoanalysis as "the Vatican".<ref name="Obit"/>

From 1946 to 1962 he was a professor of psychiatry at [[University of Kansas City]] Medical School<ref name="Benson" /> Late in life he also taugh criminology, mental higene and abnormal psychiatry at Washburn University. <ref name="Obit"/>

In 1971, He attended a psychoanalitic congress in Vienna where he talked with [[Anna Freud]], [[Sigmund Freud]]'s daughter. They were both interested in [[Child and adolescent psychiatry|pediatric psychiatry]]<ref name="Obit"/>

=== Letter to Szasz ===
In 1988, Karl Menninger wrote a letter to [[Thomas Szasz]], a psychiatrist who viewed mental illness to be a myth. In  the letter, Menninger said that he had 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.<ref>[http://www.szasz.com/menninger.html Correspondence Menninger Szasz]. Szasz website.</ref>

==Prison reform==
Karl Menninger and with his brother Will had been activists for [[Prison reform#United States|prison reform]] for a while before publishing ''The Crime of Punishment''.<ref name="TIME">TIME Magazine. 1973;102(6):60-61. Accessed February 25, 2025.</ref> In the book and elsewhere, Menninger argued that current prison system was based on a "vindictive attitude" toward crime and on [[retributive justice]] and that correctional facilities did little "correcting" of behavior.<ref> Harold E. Black (1969). [https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2823&context=klj Review of The Crime of Punishment.] ''Kentucky Law Journal''</ref> He argued that crime was preventable and real [[rehabilitation (penology)|rehabilitation]] possible through educational programs. <ref name="TIME" /> He argues that crime was not a disease but an illness and that treatment should be psychiatric in nature. The book's reception may have been coloured by the fact that he was considered an "outsider" by specialists.<ref name="Devonis" />

==Activism for children==
In 1964 Topeka, Kansas, Karl Menninger founded The Villages, group homes for youth. Later in life he would spend a third of the year doing preventative psychiatry for the foster children.<ref name="TIME" />

==Criticisms==
While parts of his correspondence seem to describe him as sympathetic to Jewish refugees and Black people, other facts add nuance. He favored a [[United States and the Holocaust#Background|quota on Jewish refugees]], and did nothing to alter [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregation]] in the Menninger Foundation. <ref>Grob, Gerald N. "DEAR DR. KARL." The New York Times Book Review, 19 Mar. 1989. Gale General OneFile</ref>

He also called homosexuality an evil and a sin in a 1963 introduction to the American edition of the [[Wolfenden Report]] <ref>[https://archive.org/details/wolfendenreportr0000intr The Wolfenden Report]: Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offenses and Prostitution. 1963 Stein and Day</ref>

==Memberships in organizations==
He was among the first members of the [[Society for General Systems Research]].<ref name="KHSociety"/> He also belonged to The [[American Indian Defense Association]], The [[Kansas State Historical Society]], American League to Abolish Capital Punishment, the [[Planned Parenthood Federation]] and the Council on Freedom From Censorship.<ref name="Obit"/>

==Personal life==
[[File:DR. AND MRS. KARL MENNINGER ATTENDING THE SECOND ANNUAL TALLGRASS PRAIRIE NATIONAL PARK CONFERENCE HELD AT ELMDALE... - NARA - 557149.jpg|thumb|Karl Menninger with his wife Jeanette in 1974]]
Menninger married Grace Gaines in 1916, with whom he had three children: Martha, Julia and Robert.<ref name=Friedman/>{{rp|154}} The couple divorced in February 1941. Menninger remarried on September 9, 1941, taking Jeanette Lyle as his wife. Together they adopted a daughter named Rosemary in 1948.<ref name=KHSKarl/> 

He was a practicing [[Presbyterian]]<ref> TIME Magazine, vol. 57, no. 16, Apr. 1951, pp. 63–65. EBSCOhost (article named Psychiatry and Religion.) </ref> as well as a [[Freemason]]<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20030430064323/http://www.srmason-sj.org/web/journal-files/Issues/mar03/uzzel.htm Karl A. Menninger]: Great American Psychiatrist And Freemason (Obituary). Scottish Rite Journal</ref>

==Death==
He died of [[abdominal cancer]] July 18, 1990, four days before his 97th birthday.<ref name="Obit"/><ref name="Benson" /> 

==Honors==
* Beginning in 1962, the American Psychiatric Association gave Menninger the Isaac Ray Award, then The First Distinguished Service Award in 1965, and the First Founders Award in 1977. <ref name="Benson" />
* In 1978 The American Medical Association gave Menninger the Sheen Award.<ref name="Benson" />
*In 1981, Menninger was awarded the [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]] by [[Jimmy Carter]].<ref name="Benson" />
*In 1985, the Menninger School of Psychiatry was named for him.

== Publications ==
Menninger wrote several books and articles. A selection:
* 1930. [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.218476 ''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.
* 1942. ''[[Love Against Hate]]''
* 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. [https://archive.org/details/theoryofpsychoan00menn ''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 ''Sparks''  
* 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.
* 1981. ''Sexuality, Law, and the Developmentally Disabled Person: Legal and Clinical Aspects of Marriage, Parenthood and Sterilization'' (with Sarah R. Haavik)
* 1985. ''Conversations with Dr. Karl Menninger'' (sound recording)
* 1989. ''The Selected Correspondence of Karl A. Menninger 1919-1945''
* 1995. ''The Selected Correspondence of Karl A. Menninger 1946-1965''

==See also==
*[[Malan triangles]]
*[[Timeline of psychiatry]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Karl Augustus Menninger}}
*[http://www.kshs.org/p/menninger-foundation-archives/13787 Search on Karl Menninger] in Menninger Foundation Archives Database from Kansas State [[Historical Society]]
* [http://www.kansasmemory.org/locate.php?categories=1245-5054& Access Karl Menninger photographs and documents on Kansas Memory, the Kansas State Historical Society's digital portal]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Menninger, Karl}}
[[Category:1893 births]]
[[Category:1990 deaths]]
[[Category:American psychiatrists]]
[[Category:Analysands of Franz Alexander]]
[[Category:Analysands of Ruth Mack Brunswick]]
[[Category:Harvard Medical School alumni]]
[[Category:History of psychiatry]]
[[Category:Physicians from Kansas]]
[[Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients]]
[[Category:Scientists from Kansas]]
[[Category:Washburn University alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from Topeka, Kansas]]
[[Category:University of Wisconsin&ndash;Madison alumni]]
[[Category:Deaths from cancer in Kansas]]
[[Category:Deaths from stomach cancer in the United States]]
[[Category:20th-century American physicians]]