MENNINGER FAMILY

American physicians who pioneered methods of psychiatric treatment in the 20th century. Charles Frederick Menninger (b. July 11, 1862, Tell City, Ind., U.S.d. Nov. 28, 1953, Topeka, Kan.) began practicing general medicine in Topeka in 1889 and became convinced of the benefit of group medical practice after visiting the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in 1908. In 1920 Menninger was joined in practice by his son Karl Augustus Menninger (b. July 22, 1893, Topekad. July 18, 1990, Topeka), who received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1917 and who spent two years working under Ernest Southard at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital. The two Menningers established the Menninger Diagnostic Clinic in Topeka for the group practice of general medicine. Karl Menninger's strong interest in psychiatry and the Topeka area's lack of hospital care for the mentally ill led him to treat psychiatric patients as well. In 1924 Charles Menninger's youngest son, William Claire Menninger (b. Oct. 15, 1899, Topekad. Sept. 6, 1966, Topeka), received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College (Ithaca, N.Y.) and served his internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. The following year, he joined the family practice. The family established the Menninger Sanitarium and Psychopathic Hospital, a 13-bed facility designed to apply group medical practice to psychiatric patients. In this and other facilities that followed, the Menningers linked two concepts: the psychoanalytic understanding of behaviour as applied to the treatment of hospitalized patients, and the use of the social environment of the hospital as an adjunct to therapy. Thus, in the Menningers' attempt to merge the psychiatric treatment of their patients with the local environment, all members of the clinic's staffnurses, therapists, orderlies, and even the housekeepersbecame an attentive and helpful part of the patients' milieu. From the onset, psychiatric research was an important part of the Menningers' total approach. The Menningers' care and treatment of the mentally ill began to draw scientists interested in their ideas and eager to study at the hospital. In 1926 the Menningers opened the Southard school for mentally retarded children, and in a matter of years they were accepting children with all types of mental disorders. The Menningers' philosophy that psychiatry is a legitimate science and that the difference between a normal individual and a person with a mental illness is but a matter of degree was expounded in Karl Menninger's first book, The Human Mind (1930). In 1931 the Menninger Sanitarium became the first institution to gain approval as a training facility for nurses specializing in psychiatric care, and in 1933 it opened a neuropsychiatric residency program for physicians. To fulfill their goal to combine medical practice, research, and education, the family formed the Menninger Foundation in 1941 and four years later the Menninger School of Psychiatry. The foundation has been extensively involved in psychiatric education, training, and research on an international level. In 1974 the foundation established the Center for Applied Behavioral Sciences, an organization to provide current information on human behaviour and motivation to business, industry, and government. Karl and William Menninger played guiding roles as the Menninger Foundation's activities and institutions grew and diversified. William served as medical director of the Menninger Psychiatric Hospital and as president of the Menninger Foundation. Karl founded and directed the Menninger School of Psychiatry from 1946 to 1969 and served as chairman of the board of trustees of the Menninger Foundation. He also continued to publish books that explored psychiatry's relation to society, as well as writing guides to psychoanalytic theory for laymen.