Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic Records, 1926 - 1968

Summary

Creator:
Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic (Baltimore, Md.)
Abstract:
This collection contains records from the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic. The collection has 3 series: Staff Conferences, Psychic Research, and Teaching and Course Material.
Extent:
3 boxes 1.04 linear feet
Language:
English

Background

Scope and content:

This collection contains records from the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic. There are 3 series in this collection.

Staff Conferences: These were attended by the entire staff of psychiatrists and residents every morning six days a week. Dr. Diethelm as Chief Resident Physician selected the speaker who was to present the discussion. Dr. Meyer presided and occasionally spoke during the entire conference. Often there were invited guests who presented on specific topics, such as psychobiology, history, and psychoanalysis. Nearly every patient admitted was discussed at some time during the staff conferences.

Psychic Research: This series consists of transcripts of interviews conducted by Dr. Meyer with three women. These people professed to be psychics, and the interviews were conducted along these lines.

Teaching and Course Material: These documents include some of Dr. Meyer’s material that he used in teaching psychiatry to first through fourth year students at Johns Hopkins University, such as examinations, outlines, and handouts prepared by Meyer for distribution to students about various aspects of psychiatry.

Biographical / historical:

The Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic was opened in 1913 and is a division of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Adolf Meyer was Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Psychiatric Clinic of Johns Hopkins Hospital beginning in 1909. At the Phipps Clinic, the leadership of Meyer shaped developments along two mutually supporting lines. First, Meyer strove to gain scientific recognition of the functioning human being as the central feature in psychiatry and towards insuring a practical acknowledgement of, and a realistic dealing with, the psychological modes of human functioning. To this end, he developed and taught a philosophical orientation to psychiatry known as psychobiology. Second, in the practical work of the clinic, Meyer insisted upon a pluralistic and pragmatic collection of all available facts about a given patient as the basis for action. The voluminous case records gathered became the main research material of the Phipps Clinic.

Acquisition information:
There are no formal records of acquisition. However, the records belonged to Dr. Oskar Diethelm during his affiliation with Johns Hopkins Medical School, where he was an Instructor and Associate in Psychiatry from 1927-1932 and Associate Professor of Psychiatry from 1932-1936.

Access and use

Restrictions:

Box 2 folders 3, 4, 6-8, 17, 19 and Box 3 folder 1 are restricted due to PHI (private health information). The folders have been removed from Box 2 and 3 and stored separately.

Terms of access:

Written permission must be obtained from the Oskar Diethelm Library and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Location of this collection:
DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry: History, Policy and the Arts
Weill Cornell Medical College
525 East 68th Street, Box 140
New York, NY 10065, United States
Link to repository site
Contact:
212-746-3728