Dr. Karl’s Columns to Be Discussed

The Capital-Journal

Dr. Karl Menninger, co-founder of the Menninger Clinic, corresponded with numerous women with troubles in the 1930s as an advice columnist for the Ladies’ Home Journal.

A discussion about Dr. Karl’s columns in the 1930s in the women’s magazine will be at 7 p.m. July 20 at Westin Crown Center, Liberty Conference Room, 1 East Pershing Road, Kansas City, Mo.

The speaker will be Jessamyn Hatcher, Ph.D., General Studies Program, New York University, writer and lecturer on the popularization of psychoanalysis in the United States.

Leading a discussion will be Irwin Rosen, Ph.D., of Topeka, longtime associate of Dr. Karl Menninger and the first post- doctoral fellow at the Menninger Clinic where he worked for 50 years, currently training supervisor at the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute.

In the 1930s, the editors of the Ladies’ Home Journal asked Dr. Karl, co-founder of the Menninger Clinic and disciple of Freud and psychoanalysis, to write a monthly column answering women’s letters about their problems.

To everyone’s surprise, the women’s letters poured in by the thousands and were heartfelt, asking about how to deal with depressed husbands who were unemployed, recalcitrant children, or their own anxieties and problems.

Dr. Karl responded in his columns and, amazingly, wrote to each woman individually. In the process he learned a lot that influenced how future generations of psychotherapists were taught and trained at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka.

(c) 2007 Topeka Capital Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.