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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Part:         Session:         Page of 1143

Q:

Was that the reason for the location of the clinic in Topeka, because of the Veterans...

Lasker:

I don't think it had anything to do with that. I think they just happened to be living in Topeka and they were men who happened to become interested in psychiatry when they were at Harvard.

Now, strangely enough, since the advent of the drugs, the tranquilizing drugs and the antidepressants, unless they've changed in the last year, the Menninger took a very dim view of the use of drugs and were terribly upset because they thought this was in some way an insult to the whole field of psychoanalysis instead of realizing it was an adjunct and that you could get people who were psychotic out of their psychoses and would make them approachable be analysis. They really took a dim view of the whole business of drugs. I'm sad to say this, but it really was so, and I fear it is still so.

Q:

What role did you actually play as a trustee?

Lasker:

Well, I gave some small amounts of money in the beginning and tried to involve them and did get Will Menninger on the Council of the Mental Health Institute, and always urged them to ask for money from the National Mental Health Institute. Somehow or other they didn't seem to understand that Federal funds were our own money in another pocket in the United States, and they tended to disdain Federal funds, even





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