Dr. Karl Menninger, often called the dean of American psychiatry, celebrated his ninetieth birthday July 22, 1983. Known affectionately as “Doctor Karl” by his friends and admirers, he continues as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Menninger Foundation, the internationally recognized psychiatric center he founded with his father and brother in 1925. Today, Dr. Menninger still works five and one-half days a week in his Topeka office—counselling colleagues, writing, preparing for lectures and teaching commitments, and maintaining correspondence on an international scale.
Dr. Menninger has been a leader in his profession for more than sixty years. As a clinician, teacher, lecturer and writer, he has devoted his life to public advocacy that mental illness can be treated and the mentally ill can be helped. His special interests have been neglected and abused children, prisons and prisoners, the American Indians, and conservation.
He is the author of thirteen books. They range from his 1930 bestseller, The Human Mind, an introduction of psychiatry to the public, to Whatever Became of Sin?, a discussion of mental and moral health in individuals and societies. His Crime of Punishment is credited as being a major catalyst in the penal reform movement.
The American Psychiatric Association, which has honored Dr. Menninger on three occasions since 1962, called him “America's greatest living psychiatrist.” In 1981, President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, with these words: “Karl Menninger has taught us much about ourselves and our behavior. An acute observer and social critic, he has put into action what he has put onto paper. As an author and doctor, his works range from popular written accounts of psychiatry to studies done in his own hospital, from creating homes for parentless children to reforming the penal system. With the wisdom of his years, he truly does represent the ideas of another generation —one of the future, rather than of the past.”
Karl Menninger was one of the early physicians who acquired their psychoanalytic training in the United States. He holds certificate No. 1 from the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. In 1942, he played a major role in the formation of the Topeka Institute for Psychoanalysis, at that time the only psychoanalytic training institute between the Mississippi River and the West Coast. He was President of the American Psychoanalytic Association in 1941 and 1942.
Dr. Menninger's birthday was marked by ceremonies and functions in Topeka. Tributes came from all over the world. Morton Reiser, President of the Association, sent him greetings on behalf of the members. An excerpt from the letter reads as follows: “We are delighted to join the host of your colleagues and friends in celebrating your birthday and in paying homage to a prominent leader in our field, a former President of our Association and an influential teacher who has been an inspiration to so many younger colleagues. Your book The Human Mind probably attracted more people into psychiatric residency than any other single publication.”