Twin Towers Quarterly, Volume 1, Issue Nr. 4 - October 1958

              Some thoughts regarding
m PSYCHIATRY
Genesis, origin, essence —
first meaning is not only deeply
interesting to the inquiring mind,
but important because such frequently reveals the true and wider
meaning of a term, a word, a
phrase, even a subject or an area
of thought. Thus, when we examine the word "psychiatry" we
know immediately it comes from
the Greek word "psy-che"
(breath, soul, spirit). Its aptness
is instantly discernible: the study
or condition of the soul, the mind
of man, or his spirit. Latest reference: the patient is mentally ill.
At the same time, we know
that the term "the soul" has been
a religious one from time immemorial. But since man learns
slowly, and teaches others even
more slowly what he does learn,
it has been only in recent years
that, in a formal, specific way,
doctors have tried to define or
equate or synthesize the two concepts: body and soul within the
framework    of    the    physician's
work, or specifically, psychiatry.
Religion and psychiatry are,
to the philosopher and student,
which is to say loosely, to him
who is neither solely physician
nor minister, two branches of the
same healthy tree, part of one
another, two wedded as one. This
idea is being explored seriously
at The Menninger Foundation,
Topeka, Kansas. It was the rare
privilege and good fortune of
your writer to have sat in on the
planning sessions prior to the
first of these explorations' at
which Dr. Karl Menninger was
both  chairman  and   inspiration.
Dr. Karl, as hundreds affectionately call him, is a man of
rich vocabulary and extraordinarily wide reading. It would
be difficult to find a reader who
consumes more material, substantial and serious in content,
and retains it, than he — and at
the speed he does. So it follows
that he is or tends to be purist