Losing an Intellectual Giant: Dr. Roy Menninger

Dr. Roy Menninger

By Michael Hooper

Dr. Roy Menninger, 97, an intellectual giant, former CEO of the Menninger Clinic, died Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024, at Stormont-Vail hospital. 

Dr. Roy is perhaps the wisest, most respected man I have ever interviewed, a person with a history of improving and shaping psychiatry in our world. He was a highly accomplished CEO, who worked with some of the finest minds in psychiatry as president of the Menninger Clinic from 1967 to 1993.

I met Dr. Roy Menninger around 2001-2002. I was writing stories for the Topeka Capital-Journal about the Menninger Clinic’s impending departure from Topeka. Dr. Roy talked about the difficult financial challenges facing Menninger after managed care changed the amount of money that clinics could charge customers. In the old days Irving Sheffel said they would bill the insurance companies for the cost of care and the insurance companies paid it. But that changed. 

Fundraising became increasingly important. There was a professional fundraising staff, but sometimes the potential donor wanted to meet with the top leader.

One of the many fascinating people Dr. Roy met over the years was a donor from Los Angeles, her name was Liliore Green Rains, an heiress to an oil and land-development fortune from her father, Beverly Hills developer Burton Green. Dr. Roy befriended Mrs. Rains. She gave smaller amounts to the Menninger Foundation. 

Dr. Roy and his wife Beverly visited Mrs. Rains in her lovely home filled with many pieces of art in Los Angeles. Dr. Roy gave her confidence that her gifts would help people suffering from mental illness. After she died, Mrs. Rains left $40 million to the Menninger Foundation. That gift benefited the organization for many many years.

The Menninger Clinic started in Topeka in 1925 and employed more than 1,000 employees before leaving in 2003 for Houston.

Like others in Topeka, I was sad to see the Menninger Clinic move away, but it seemed that Dr. Walt Menninger, then president, and Dr. Richard Munich, then chief of the medical staff, wanted the organization to be tied to a top-tier university system that would support education and research. The clinic in Houston partnered with the Baylor College of Medicine, creating its Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

How we view mental illness today is in large part due to the efforts of people like Dr. Roy Menninger and his father Dr. Will Menninger, his uncle Dr. Karl Menninger and Dr. Roy's grandfather Dr. C.F. Menninger. The treatment of mental illness is no longer a taboo thing or something to be hidden or something that we should be ashamed of but rather it’s something we should actually have compassion toward and open our hearts toward helping people suffering from these illnesses.

Dr. Roy said something recently that was really profound. Menninger provided training in therapy to every employee, and that included the grounds keepers, cafeteria workers, and housekeepers. All of these people, along with the professional staff, combined together to help reduce tension and increase healing. 

“ I think it’s what made us unique,” Dr Roy said.

"I particularly appreciated your reference to Drs. Karl, Will  and CF," Dr. Roy wrote to me. "Though I am happy to take some credit for the institution's progress after 1967, in truth, in a very essential way, my  working philosophy was rooted in  the values and perspectives of my forebears. My views were encouraged and nurtured by the intellectual excitement and the satisfactions of  all those working there, which was a consequence of widely shared values – our appreciation of the worth and integrity of every person, staff as well as patients, the impact of the mutual teaching and learning on all of us, and the vision that our work was effective and valued by both patients and staff. I think it was a rare environment. Given the current constraints on both time and money, it is hard to see how a world like that one could be created or even sustained now. And that is a sad fact. The consolation, at least for me, is the realization that the values that infused our world persist in the lives of those we helped and the helpers who helped them."

He wrote a paper recently describing his history in psychiatry. 

Dr. Roy had great patience. He was willing to sit down and talk to some of the most difficult patients, including a schizophrenic patient who was catatonic. He sat with this patient every day for several weeks during his residency in Boston. Sometimes he would just read the newspaper to her. And during that time he only got one real acknowledgment or response, she lifted her finger. His patience with this person shows the real heart of a man, not a machine, but a man with compassion and empathy, even in the face of few results.

I last saw Dr. Roy on Oct. 9. He was lucid, wise and thoughtful, a great listener and curious about everything. He was in book club where he listened often and spoke infrequently, sometimes not at all, but when he did speak, he was articulate, perceptive, and thought provoking.

Dr. Roy touched and inspired many lives. May he rest in peace.

Here is a link to his obituary