Adolf Meyer (September 13, 1866 – March 17, 1950) was a Swiss-born
psychiatrist who rose to prominence as the first psychiatrist-in-chief of the
Johns Hopkins Hospital
The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 m ...
(1910-1941). He was president of the
American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 37,000 members are involv ...
in 1927–28 and was one of the most influential figures in psychiatry in the first half of the twentieth century. His focus on collecting detailed case histories on patients was one of the most prominent of his contributions. He oversaw the building and development of the
Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in April 1913, making sure it was suitable for scientific research, training and treatment.
Meyer's work at the Phipps Clinic is possibly the most significant aspect of his career.
Meyer's main theoretical contribution was his idea of ergasiology (a term he derived from the Greek for "working" and "doing") to describe a
psychobiology. This brought together all the biological, social and psychological factors and symptoms pertaining to a patient. It considered mental illnesses to be a product of dysfunctional personality not a pathology of the brain. Believing that whole-life social and biological factors should be central to both diagnosis and treatment Meyer was one of the earliest psychologists to support
occupational therapy as an important connection between the activities of an individual and their mental health, and incorporated community based activities and services to develop people's everyday living skills.
[Meyer, A (1922). The philosophy of occupation therapy. Archives of Occupational Therapy, 1, 1–10.]
Personal life and education
Adolf Meyer was born in
Niederweningen
Niederweningen is a municipality in the district of Dielsdorf in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.
History
Niederweningen is first mentioned between 1096 and 1111 as ''Waningen''. In 1269 it was mentioned as ''Nidirunweningin''.
The railway ...
,
Switzerland, in 1866. He was the son of a
Zwinglian
The theology of Ulrich Zwingli was based on an interpretation of the Bible, taking scripture as the inspired word of God and placing its authority higher than what he saw as human sources such as the ecumenical councils and the church fathers. He ...
pastor.
Meyer received his MD from the
University of Zurich
The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...
in 1892, where he studied
neurology
Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...
under
Auguste Forel
Auguste-Henri Forel (1 September 1848 – 27 July 1931) was a Swiss myrmecologist, neuroanatomist, psychiatrist and eugenicist, notable for his investigations into the structure of the human brain and that of ants. For example, he is considere ...
. During his time at the university, he studied abroad in Paris, London and Edinburgh, working under
John Hughlings Jackson and
Jean-Martin Charcot.
His doctorate thesis was published in 1892 and had to do with the reptilian forebrain.
Unable to secure an appointment with the university, he emigrated to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
in 1892. Meyer married Mary Potter Brooks, of
Newburgh, New York
Newburgh is a city in the U.S. state of New York, within Orange County. With a population of 28,856 as of the 2020 census, it is a principal city of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area. Located north of New York City, a ...
, on September 15, 1902.
They had one daughter, Julia Lathrup Meyer, on February 14, 1916. Meyer died on March 17, 1950, at his home at 4305 Rugby Road in Baltimore, Maryland, of a heart attack.
He was buried in
Druid Ridge Cemetery in
Pikesville, Maryland.
Medical career
Early career
After moving to the United States, Meyer first practiced neurology and teaching at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
, where he was exposed to the ideas of the Chicago functionalists. He was unable to find a paid full-time post at the University of Chicago, so his time at the university was short-lived; serving from 1892 to 1895.
From 1893 to 1895, he served as pathologist at the
new mental hospital at Kankakee, Illinois,
after which he worked at the state hospital at
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...
from 1895 to 1902, all the while publishing papers prolifically in neurology,
neuropathology
Neuropathology is the study of disease of nervous system tissue, usually in the form of either small surgical biopsies or whole-body autopsies. Neuropathologists usually work in a department of anatomic pathology, but work closely with the clini ...
, and psychiatry. He also served as docent at
Clark University
Clark University is a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1887 with a large endowment from its namesake Jonas Gilman Clark, a prominent businessman, Clark was one of the first modern research universities in the ...
.
Time in New York
In 1902, he became director of the Pathological Institute of the New York State Hospital system (shortly afterwards given its present name,
The Psychiatric Institute), where in the next few years he shaped much of American psychiatry by emphasizing the importance of keeping detailed patient records and by introducing both
Emil Kraepelin
Emil Wilhelm Georg Magnus Kraepelin (; ; 15 February 1856 – 7 October 1926) was a German psychiatrist.
H. J. Eysenck's ''Encyclopedia of Psychology'' identifies him as the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, psychopharmacology and psych ...
's classificatory system and
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
's ideas. While in the New York State Hospital system, Meyer was one of the first importers of Freud's ideas about the importance both of sexuality and of the formative influence of early rearing on the adult personality. Meyer found many of Freud's ideas and therapeutic methods insightful and useful, but he rejected psychoanalysis as a wholesale etiological explanation of mental disorders in favor of his own theory of psychobiology. He never practiced
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
and always kept it at arm's length from Johns Hopkins because of Freud's increasingly dogmatic insistence on the psychical causation of mental illnesses. As he wrote in his presidential address to the 84th Annual Meeting of the
American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 37,000 members are involv ...
: "Those who imagine that all psychiatry and psychopathology and therapy have to resolve themselves into a smattering of claims and hypotheses of psychoanalysis and that they stand or fall with one's feelings about psychoanalysis, are equally misguided". Meyer was Professor of Psychiatry at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
from 1904 to 1909.
The Phipps Clinic at Johns Hopkins
![The Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/The_Henry_Phipps_Psychiatric_Clinic.jpg)
In 1908, Meyer was asked to become the director of a new psychiatric clinic at the
Johns Hopkins Hospital
The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 m ...
after
Henry Phipps Jr. donated 1.5 million dollars to open the clinic. Meyer accepted the offer, which he described as "the most important professorship
n psychiatryin the English-speaking domain." He oversaw the building and development of the clinic and made sure the building was suitable for scientific research, training and treatment. The
Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic opened in April 1913.
Meyer's work at the Phipps Clinic is arguably the most significant aspect of his career. His model for the Phipps Clinic combined clinical and laboratory work, which was the first time these elements were combined in a mental institute in the United States.
Though the Phipps Clinic did not use the clinical model of Emil Kraepelin, Meyer did incorporate some of Kraepelin's practices into the clinic.
These practices include extensive observations of the patients and studying both the presymptomatic and remissive phases of mental illness, along with periods of acute illness.
Meyer also served as a Professor of Psychiatry at
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...
from 1910 to 1941. In his beginning years at Johns Hopkins, Meyer helped oversee the work of a few of his aspiring students.
Phyllis Greenacre, from the University of Chicago, and
Curt Richter
Curt Paul Richter (February 20, 1894 – December 21, 1988) was a biologist, psychobiologist and geneticist who made important contributions in the field of circadian rhythms. Notably, Richter identified the hypothalamus as a "biological pacemake ...
, a Harvard graduate, both had the opportunity to study under Meyer. Most notably, Richter studied the behavior of rats with Meyer and
John Watson, a behavioral psychologist. Adolf Meyer worked at
Johns Hopkins until his retirement in 1941.
Meyer also conducted a nine-month study of the brain of
Giuseppe Zangara
Giuseppe Zangara (September 7, 1900 – March 20, 1933) was an Italian immigrant and naturalized United States citizen who attempted to assassinate the President-elect of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on February 15, 1933, 17 ...
, assassin who shot at President
Franklin Roosevelt and killed Mayor
Anton Cermak
Anton Joseph Cermak ( cs, Antonín Josef Čermák, ; May 9, 1873 – March 6, 1933) was an American politician who served as the 44th mayor of Chicago, Illinois from April 7, 1931 until his death on March 6, 1933. He was killed by an assassin, ...
.
Legacy
Honors and awards
Meyer received honorary degrees from
Glasgow University
, image = UofG Coat of Arms.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
in 1901, Clark University in 1909,
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
in 1934 and
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in 1942. In 1942, Meyer was awarded the Thomas Salmon Medal for distinguished service in psychiatry.
In 1938, the neuropsychiatric clinic at
Rhode Island State Hospital for Mental Diseases was named after Meyer.
People
Many of Meyer's students went on to make significant contributions to American psychiatry or
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
, though not necessarily as Meyerians. Most of the founders of the
New York Psychoanalytic Society
The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute — founded in 1911 by Dr. Abraham A. Brill — is the oldest psychoanalytic organization in the United States.
The charter members were: Louis Edward Bisch, Brill, Horace Westlake Frink, Fre ...
had worked under Meyer at
Manhattan State Hospital, including its chief architect
Abraham Arden Brill
Abraham Arden Brill (October 12, 1874 – March 2, 1948) was an Austrian-born psychiatrist who spent almost his entire adult life in the United States. He was the first psychoanalyst to practice in the United States and the first translator of ...
, and
Charles Macfie Campbell
Charles Macfie Campbell (1876–1943) was a psychiatrist in the United States. He was President of the American Psychiatric Association.
Early life
Campbell was born in Scotland in 1876. He received his medical degree from Edinburgh in 1902, ear ...
.
Meyer and
William Henry Welch
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Eng ...
played an instrumental role in
Clifford Beers' founding of the Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene in 1908. Under Meyer's direction,
Leo Kanner
Leo Kanner (; born Chaskel Leib Kanner; June 13, 1894 – April 3, 1981) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist, physician, and social activist best known for his work related to autism spectrum disorder. Before working at the Henry Phipps Psychi ...
founded the first child psychiatry clinic in the United States at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1930.
Contributions to psychology
![AdolfMeyer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/AdolfMeyer.jpg)
Meyer's main contribution was in his ideas of
psychobiology, where he focused on addressing all biological, social and psychological factors and symptoms pertaining to a patient. Meyer coined the term "ergasiology", which has Greek roots for "working" and "doing", as another way to classify psychobiology. One of his ideas was that mental illnesses were a product of a dysfunctional personality and not from the pathology of the brain. He also stressed the idea that social and biological factors that affect someone throughout their entire life should be heavily considered when diagnosing and treating a patient. Another contribution of Meyer was that he was one of the earlier psychologists that supported occupational therapy. He thought there was an important connection between the activities of an individual and their mental health. Taking this into consideration he looked for community based activities and services to aid people with everyday living skills.
Meyer was a strong believer in the importance of
empiricism, and advocated repeatedly for a scientific, and, particularly, a biological approach to understanding mental illness. He hoped that the Phipps Clinic would help put mental illness on the same ground as every other human illness.
He insisted that patients could best be understood through consideration of their "psychobiological" life situations. He reframed mental disease as
biopsychosocial
Biopsychosocial models are a class of trans-disciplinary models which look at the interconnection between biology, psychology, and socio-environmental factors. These models specifically examine how these aspects play a role in topics ranging from ...
"reaction types" rather than as biologically specifiable natural disease entities. In 1906, he reframed
dementia praecox
Dementia praecox (meaning a "premature dementia" or "precocious madness") is a disused psychiatric diagnosis that originally designated a chronic, deteriorating psychotic disorder characterized by rapid cognitive disintegration, usually beginni ...
as a "reaction type", a discordant bundle of maladaptive
habit
A habit (or wont as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously. s that arose as a response to biopsychosocial
stressor
A stressor is a chemical or biological agent, environmental condition, external stimulus or an event seen as causing stress to an organism. Psychologically speaking, a stressor can be events or environments that individuals might consider demandin ...
s.
Meyer was also involved with the
Eugenics Records Office, which he viewed as a natural extension of the
mental hygiene movement which he helped to create. He served on the advisory council of the American Eugenics Society for 12 years, from 1923 to 1935. Meyer's views on eugenics have not yet been studied closely and his association with the Eugenics Record Office cannot be equated straightforwardly with the extremism of some eugenicists, especially in light of the fact that the fundamental premise of Meyerian psychobiology contradicted the genetic determinism that underpinned scientific racism in the first half of the twentieth century.
[Lamb, ''Pathologist of the Mind'', Chapter 2]
Publications
Meyer never published a textbook. Between 1890 and 1943, he published roughly 400 articles in scientific and academic journals, mostly in English, but also in his native German and in French. Most were published together after his death in 1950 in four bound volumes called ''The Collected Papers of Adolf Meyer''.
The Collected Papers of Adolf Meyer(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1951)
''The Anatomical Facts and Clinical Varieties of Traumatic Insanity'' (1904)* ''The Nature and Conception of Dementia Praecox'' (1910)
''Constructive Formulation of Schizophrenia ''(1922)
References
Notes
at http://www.medicalarchives.jhmi.edu; a Guide to the personal papers collection of Adolf Meyer at The Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions with a short biography and timeline
Further reading
T''he Collected Papers of Adolf Meyer'', edited by Eunice E. Winters. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1950–1952. 4 vols.
T''he Commonsense Psychiatry of Dr. Adolf Meyer: Fifty-two Selected Papers'', edited by Alfred A. Lief. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948.
''Psychobiology: a Science of Man'', compiled and edited by Eunice E. Winters and Anna Mae Bowers. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, (1957). This posthumous book was based on the first Thomas W. Salmon Lectures, which Meyer gave in 1931.
George Kirby's ''Guides for History Taking and Clinical Examination of Psychiatric Cases'' (Utica: State Hospitals Press 1921) is essentially the form Meyer created and used at Manhattan State Hospital in 1905–1906. It provides an excellent view of Meyer's early approach to taking case histories.
Richard Noll, ''American Madness: The Rise and Fall of Dementia Praecox'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).
S. D. Lamb, ''Pathologist of the Mind: Adolf Meyer and the Origins of American Psychiatry'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) Reissued in paperback in 2018.
Susan Lamb, "'My Resisting Getting Well': Neurasthenia and Subconscious Conflict in Patient-Psychiatrist Interactions in Prewar America," ''
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
The ''Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the history of social and behavioral sciences. It was established in 1965 and is published by John Wiley & Sons. The editor-in-chief i ...
'' 52/2 (2016): pages 124-45.
Susan Lamb, "Social Skills: Adolf Meyer’s Revision of Clinical Skill for the New Psychiatry of the Twentieth Century. ''
Medical History
The medical history, case history, or anamnesis (from Greek: ἀνά, ''aná'', "open", and μνήσις, ''mnesis'', "memory") of a patient is information gained by a physician by asking specific questions, either to the patient or to other peo ...
'' Vol. 59 No. 3 (2015): pages 443-64.
Susan Lamb, "Social, Motivational, and Symptomatic Diversity: An Analysis of the Patient Population of the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1913 – 1917," ''
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History'' Vol. 29 No.2: pages 243-63.
Adolf Meyer,
What Do Histories of Cases of Insanity Teach Us Concerning Preventive Mental Hygiene during the Years of School Life?, ''Psychological Clinic'' 2, no. 4 (1908): 89–101
PMC 5138873
Meyer's influence on American psychology can be explored in ''Defining American Psychology: The Correspondence Between Adolf Meyer and Edward Bradford Titchener'', edited by Ruth Leys and Rand B. Evans. Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, (1990).
Meyer's importance to the introduction and development of American
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
is discussed and interpreted in:
John C. Burnham, ''Psychoanalysis and American Medicine, 1894–1917: Medicine, Science, and Culture (''New York: International Universities Press, 1967); John Gach, "Culture & Complex: On the Early History of Psychoanalysis in America" (pages 135–160) in ''Essays in the History of Psychiatry'', edited by Edwin R. Wallace IV and Lucius Pressley (Columbia, SC: William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute, 1980); Nathan Hale, ''Freud and the Americans: The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis in the United States'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); and Chapter Six of S. D. Lamb, ''Pathologist of the Mind: Adolf Meyer and the Origins of American Psychiatry'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); Ruth Leys, "Meyer's Dealings With Jones: A Chapter in the History of the American Response to Psychoanalysis," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 17 (1981): pages 445-465; Ruth Leys, "Meyer, Jung, and the Limits of Association," ''Bulletin of the History of Medicine'' 59 (1985): pages 345-360; Scull, Andrew, and Jay Schulkin, "Psychobiology, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis: The Intersecting Careers of Adolf Meyer, Phyllis Greenacre, and Curt Richter." ''Medical History'' (National Institute of Health, Jan. 2009). Web. 22 Feb. 2015.
See also
Theodore Lidz Theodore Lidz (1 April 1910 – 16 February 2001) was an American psychiatrist best known for his articles and books on the causes of schizophrenia and on psychotherapy with patients with schizophrenia. An advocate of research into environmental ...
, "Adolf Meyer and the Development of American Psychiatry." ''The American Journal of Psychiatry'', 123(3), pp 320–332 (1966) and C.H. Christiansen "Adolf Meyer Revisited:Connections between Lifestyle, Resilience and Illness". Journal of Occupational Science 14(2),63‐76. (2007).
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer, Adolf
1866 births
1950 deaths
American science writers
American psychiatrists
Johns Hopkins Hospital physicians
People associated with the University of Zurich
Swiss emigrants to the United States
American people of Swiss-German descent
Cornell University faculty
History of psychiatry
Presidents of the American Psychiatric Association
Niederweningen
People from Dielsdorf District
New York State Psychiatric Institute people