Psychiatrists and clergymen, meeting over the ailing psyche of modern man, still eye one another suspiciously. Rare is the churchman who makes systematic use of psychiatric techniques in his ministry to souls; rare is the analyst who lives and works upon specific premises of religious faith. One exception is Karl Menninger of the famed Menninger psychiatric clinic in Topeka, Kans. (TiME, Oct. 25, 1948). Busy Dr. Menninger practices Presbyterianism as well as Freud, sees no irreconcilable conflict between the two; in the current issue of the Chicago Theological Seminary Register he explains how these practices parallel:
Religious behavior, says Psychiatrist Menninger, can be divided into "behavior with reference to fellow-creatures" (morals), and "behavior with reference to God" (worship). Does Dr. Menninger believe in prayer? "I could not make a conscientious answer," he replies, "without stipulating that the question be resolved into various parts.
"If I were asked, 'Do you believe that prayer exists?' I could answer easily, 'Yes' —for me, and for many others. If I were then asked, 'Do you believe that the prayers of men are heard by God?' I could answer in the affirmative because my conception of God is such that everything reaches Him. If I were asked, 'Do you believe that God answers prayers?' . . . my affirmative answer would not necessarily mean that I agree with what is in the mind of the questioner."
Guilt & Sex. Dr. Menninger sees "value in group assemblages and some kind of formal ritual. As a lifelong Presbyterian, I am not a genuflector but I respect it as one of several simple maneuvers which have the same meaning of reverence . . . The mutual stimulation, reinforcement and encouragement that the individuals of a group receive from one another are well known to psychology, and the effect of a common relationship to a leader—pastor, rabbi or priest—has been carefully examined by many scientists, including Freud. Singing together has so great and obvious a value in furthering interpersonal linkages and enthusiasm in a common purpose that it is surprising that it was so long neglected by the Christian church ' and only introduced by Luther (and thereafter by Catholic authorities also)."
In the field of morals Dr. Menninger finds psychiatry on the defensive. " 'Psychiatrists are wicked men,' we are told. 'They persuade their patients to a Godless, immoral philosophy. They repudiate the conscience; they advocate irresponsible self-expression to the disregard of moral law.'"
An important reason for this position, says Menninger, is the common impression that psychiatry is down on all sense of guilt. Not so, argues Menninger. It is only false guilt—the patient's sense of sin about something he did not do—that psychoanalysis tries to remove.