ABSTRACT
The first psychiatrist to attain the rank of Brigadier General, William Menninger reshaped Army psychiatry, transforming psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and the mental health professions following the war. Chief of the army’s Neuropsychiatric Division, Menninger brought an optimistic American can-do attitude to military psychiatry, focusing on its ability to heal traumatized soldiers. While in the early years of the war a soldier diagnosed as a psychiatric casualty would have been discharged, Menninger’s goal was to treat the soldier and get him back to the fight. The belief that treatment could bring about recovery ultimately brought psychotherapy and psychoanalysis into their golden age. This chapter continues the story of the impact of World War II on American psychiatry and psychoanalysis. The historical background of the rise of psychoanalysis to its position of power following the war is essential to an understanding of how psycho analysis came to define itself in opposition to psychotherapy.
