Karl Augustus Menninger

Karl Augustus Menninger was one of the seminal figures in American psychiatry, founding the Menninger Clinic just outside Topeka in 1925 along with his father and brother. The clinic brought the idea of group practice pioneered by the Mayo Clinic to the field of psychiatry. At the Menninger Clinic, patients were treated in what was called the “total environment,” where they were in full-time care rather than regular weekly meetings. In 1941 he helped found the Menninger Foundation. Menninger also held that most crime resulted from emotional illness, and that no form of imprisonment could provide rehabilitation without addressing the underlying causes. He spent most of his life in Kansas, publishing several books which popularized the field. Karl Menninger died of abdominal cancer in 1990, he was 96.