When I attended the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry for my residency training in psychiatry, one of the real treats was having the opportunity to meet with the school’s namesake, “Dr. Karl,” himself. He along with his brother Will and his father C.F. founded the Menninger Clinic in the early part of the 20th Century in Topeka, Kansas. The clinic and hospital along with the training programs served as shining lights to those who wished to pursue a career in psychiatry and other related mental health disciplines.

A meeting with Dr. Karl was not your run-of-the-mill get-together. It was like going to the inner sanctum, the holy of holies, if you will. One fascinating characteristic of those visits was that Dr. Karl would never let you leave his office empty-handed. Perhaps there was a favorite poem he would want you to take from the office, or maybe he would present you with a copy of one of the many books he authored.

One such book was his classic, The Human Mind, written in the 1920s and published in 1930. It served as one of the earliest books written on mental health that was geared to the public. This popular volume helped to get information to the general public about a subject that was often considered taboo for discussion outside the walls of academia or psychiatric treatment facilities. The book has been out of print for some years, but to have the privilege of being given a copy of this book before the completion of a residency was indeed a true honor.  When Dr. Karl gave me a copy of The Human Mind and wrote a beautiful inscription on the inside cover, it was as though he was giving me his seal of approval to go out there and treat the very people he had aimed to inform about psychiatry for so many years.

Fast forward for a moment to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that shows nearly one-third (28%) of internet users go online to access information about mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. That percentage has significantly increased in the past two years.

On the one hand, I am not at all surprised by the findings because so many of my patients have commented on their search for information on mental health.  That search has taken them to everything from my own website to chat rooms to sites like WebMD to sites operated by pharmaceutical companies and mental health care agencies.

On the other hand, I am concerned that some of those searches have taken them to information that is perhaps not accurate or is so slanted in its presentation, lacking any scientific back-up, that it can scare people away from the treatment they really need.

There is no doubt that a well-informed consumer is more likely to make well-informed choices about any consumer issue, not the least being mental health. Just as we clinicians need to look over research studies with a critical eye, our patients also need to sort out the information they come across on the internet.  Perhaps, this is one of the primary reasons for having  a website and a blog.

There aren’t that many of us out on the front lines treating patients who are then trying to get the word out about our field from a psychiatrist’s perspective in this manner. I hope that you as a reader will find this type of presentation informative, relevant and – perhaps most of all – accessible.

If there is something you want covered in this blog, on the podcast or through Twitter, please let us know. Maybe in the 20s and 30s a landmark book was needed to heighten the public awareness of mental health issues. Nearly eight or nine decades later, you can reach out as never before to increase your own knowledge about the human mind and psychiatric conditions and treatment. Good luck with that search.

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