Menninger, karl

Menninger, Karl (1893–1990), and William (1899–1966), psychiatrists, founders of the Menninger Foundation. Karl Menninger, together with his father, Charles Frederick Menninger, founded theMenninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, in 1919. The clinic began as a small psychiatric facility in a renovated farmhouse. William Menninger, Karl's brother, joined the clinic in 1925, and a few years later itgrew into a full-scale psychiatric hospital named the Menninger Sanitarium. In 1941, the hospital became part of the newly incorporated Menninger Foundation. Five years later, Karl Menninger foundedthe Menninger School of Psychiatry, which soon emerged as one of the nation's largest and most respected training facilities for psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and psychiatric social workers.In addition to his work for the Menninger Foundation, Karl Menninger helped popularize Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theories among American psychiatrists as well as the general public. Hediscussed Freud's ideas in several influential books, including The Human Mind (1930), Man against Himself (1938), Love against Hate (1942), and The Vital Balance (1963). He became especially well known forhis espousal of Freud's dual-drive theory, which postulates that there are basic types of instincts—those that serve life (Eros) and those that serve death (Thanatos). In 1942, he organized the TopekaInstitute for Psychoanalysis, which helped train new psychoanalysts along Freudian lines.

William Menninger, too, also had a career outside the Menninger Foundation as a leader in the psychiatrictreatment of American soldiers. Beginning his World War II military career as a neuropsychiatric consultant, by 1944 he was head of the Army's psychiatric programs and held the rank of brigadiergeneral.

See also Mental Health Institutions; Mental Illness; Psychotheraphy.

Bibliography
Lawrence J. Friedman , Menninger: The Family and the Clinic, 1990.

Mark I. West

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