The Menninger Foundation was founded in 1919 by the Menninger family in

Topeka, Kansas Topeka ( ; Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeast Kansas, in the Central U ...

. The Menninger Foundation, known locally as Menninger's, consists of a

clinic A clinic (or outpatient clinic or ambulatory care clinic) is a health facility that is primarily focused on the care of outpatients. Clinics can be privately operated or publicly managed and funded. They typically cover the primary care needs ...

, a

sanatorium A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal, make healthy'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, are antiquated names for specialised hospitals, for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often ...

, and a school of

psychiatry Psychiatry is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psych ...

, all of which bear the Menninger name. Menninger's consisted of a campus at 5800 S.W. 6th Avenue in

which included a pool as well as the other aforementioned buildings. In 2003, the Menninger Clinic moved to

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

. The foundation was started in 1919 by Dr. Charles F. Menninger and his sons, Drs.

Karl Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer * Karl of Austria, last Austria ...

and

William 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 Engl ...

Menninger. It represented the first group

practice. "We had a vision," Dr. C. F. Menninger said, "of a better kind of medicine and a better kind of world."

History

The Menninger Clinic, also known as the C. F. Menninger Memorial Hospital, was founded in the 1920s in Topeka, Kansas. The Menninger Sanitarium was founded in 1925. The Menninger Clinic established the Southard School for children in 1926. The school fostered treatment programs for children and

adolescents Adolescence () is a transitional stage of Developmental biology, physical and psychological Human development (biology), development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majo ...

that were recognized worldwide. In the 1930s the Menningers expanded

training Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. I ...

programs for psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals. The Menninger Foundation was established in 1941. The Menninger School of Psychiatry was established in 1946. It quickly became the largest training center in the country, driven by the country's demand for psychiatrists to treat military veterans. Menninger announced its affiliation with

Baylor College of Medicine Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a medical school and research center in Houston, Texas, within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate S ...

and The Methodist Hospital in December 2002. The concept was that Menninger would perform treatment while Baylor would oversee research and education.

Moves

The Menninger Clinic moved in June 2003 from

to Houston, Texas. The Menninger Clinic again moved to its new location at 12301 S. Main St., Houston, Texas, 77035 in May 2012.

Current facilities

As of May 2012, The Menninger Clinic offers: Adolescent Treatment Program, a Professionals Program, the Compass Program for Young Adults, the Comprehensive Psychiatric Assessment & Stabilization Program, an Assessments Service and the Hope Program for Adults.

Revolution in psychiatric education

The Menninger School of Psychiatry and the local

Veterans Administration The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers a ...

Hospital represented the center of a psychiatric education revolution. The Clinic and the School became the hub for training professionals in the bio-psycho-social approach. This approach integrated the foundations of

medical Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...

psychodynamic Psychodynamics, also known as psychodynamic psychology, in its broadest sense, is an approach to psychology that emphasizes systematic study of the psychological forces underlying human behavior, feelings, and emotions and how they might relate t ...

, developmental, and

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

systems to focus on the overall

health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...

of patients. For patients, this way of treatment attended to their physical,

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is currently no scientific ...

al, and social needs. Dr.

Otto Fleischmann Otto Fleischmann (January 24, 1896 in Mór, Hungary; January 8, 1963 in New York City) was a Hungarian-born Freudian psychoanalyst. Vienna Otto Fleischmann, although originally a juris doctor, studied philosophy with Moritz Schlick at the Univers ...

, head of the psychoanalytic institute from 1956 to 1963, was doing psychotherapy behind a one-way vision screen, in full view of all the students. In 1960

Otto Kernberg Otto Friedmann Kernberg (born 10 September 1928) is a psychoanalyst and professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine. He is most widely known for his psychoanalytic theories on borderline personality organization and narcissistic pathology. I ...

joined the Clinic and later become its director until 1965.

Karl Menninger

Dr. Karl Menninger's first

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physi ...

, ''The Human Mind'' (1930), became a bestseller and familiarized the American public with

human behavior Human behavior is the potential and expressed capacity ( mentally, physically, and socially) of human individuals or groups to respond to internal and external stimuli throughout their life. Kagan, Jerome, Marc H. Bornstein, and Richard M. ...

. Many Americans also read his subsequent books, including ''The Vital Balance'', ''Man Against Himself'' and ''Love Against Hate''.

Will Menninger

Dr. Will Menninger made a major contribution to the field of psychiatry when he developed a system of hospital treatment known as

milieu therapy Milieu therapy is a form of psychotherapy that involves the use of therapeutic communities. Patients join a group of around 30, for between 9 and 18 months. During their stay, patients are encouraged to take responsibility for themselves and th ...

. This approach involved a patient's total environment in treatment. Dr. Menninger served as Chief of the Army Medical Corps' Psychiatric Division during World War II. Under his leadership, the Army reduced losses in personnel due to psychological impairment. In 1945, the Army promoted Dr. Menninger to brigadier general. After the war, Dr. Menninger led a national revolution to reform state sanitariums. In 1948, ''Time'' magazine featured Dr. Menninger on its cover, lauding him as "psychiatry’s U.S. sales manager."

Activities

At the Menninger Clinic, staff proceeded to launch new treatment approaches and open specialty programs. The Menninger Foundation gained a reputation for intensive, individualized treatment, particularly for patients with complex or long-standing symptoms. The treatment approach was multidimensional, addressing a patient's medical, psychological, and social needs. Numerous independent organizations recognized the Menninger Foundation as a world leader in psychiatric and behavioral health treatment. ''US News & World Report'' listed Houston’s Menninger Clinic #5 in Psychiatry on their annual list of best hospitals The rankings are based on performance in meeting certain criteria, and are given a grade in each section and an overall scorecard. The eligibility requirements to participate are such that only 165 hospitals were considered for evaluation. The Menninger Clinic remains one of the primary North American settings supporting psychodynamically informed research on clinical diagnosis, assessment, and treatment. Recently, efforts have been organized around the construct of mentalizing, a concept integrating research activities related to attachment, theory of mind, internal representations, and neuroscience. In the 1960s the Menninger Clinic studied Swami Rama, a noted

yogi A yogi is a practitioner of Yoga, including a sannyasin or practitioner of meditation in Indian religions.A. K. Banerjea (2014), ''Philosophy of Gorakhnath with Goraksha-Vacana-Sangraha'', Motilal Banarsidass, , pp. xxiii, 297-299, 331 Th ...

, specifically investigating his ability to exercise voluntary control of bodily processes (such as heartbeat) which are normally considered non-voluntary (autonomous) as well as Yoga Nidra. It was part of Gardner Murphy's research program into creativity and the paranormal, funded by Ittleson Family Foundation.

References

* Lawrence Jacob Friedman, ''Menninger: The Family and the Clinic'', University Press of Kansas, 1992 (Reprint) *

Robert S. Wallerstein Robert S. Wallerstein (January 28, 1921 – December 21, 2014) was a prominent German-born American psychoanalyst. He headed the Psychotherapy Research Project of the Menninger Foundation and was president of the International Psychoanalytical Ass ...

, ''Forty-two lives in treatment : a study of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy : the report of the Psychotherapy Research Project of the Menninger Foundation, 1954-1982'', New York : Other Press, 2000

External links

Menninger Clinic official website

''The Topeka Capital Journals in-depth coverage of Menninger leaving Topeka - index page

''U.S. News & World Report'' psychiatric hospital rankings

Menninger Foundation Archives
from Kansas State Historical Society
Access Menninger photographs and documents on Kansas Memory, the Kansas State Historical Society's digital portal

* ttps://www.kansasmemory.org/item/222590 ''Staff of Psychotherapy Research Project at Menninger in Topeka, Kansas'' 1959, at Kansas Memory, not in PD {{authority control Biomedical research foundations Mental health organizations in Kansas History of psychiatry Psychoanalysis in the United States Mental health organizations in Texas Medical and health foundations in the United States