Adolf Meyer was a Swiss-born psychiatrist who rose to prominence as the first psychiatrist-in-chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1910–1941). He was president of the American Psychiatric Association in 1927–28 and was one of the most influential figures in psychiatry in the first half of the twentieth century. His focus on collecting detailed case histories on patients was one of the most prominent of his contributions. He oversaw the building and development of the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in April 1913, making sure it was suitable for scientific research, training and treatment. Meyer's work at the Phipps Clinic is possibly the most significant aspect of his career.

The Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic is a psychiatric school and clinic in Baltimore, Maryland. Proposed in 1908 as the first of its kind in the United States, the clinic opened on April 16, 1913 as a new section of Johns Hopkins Hospital. After a visit to the hospital to check on his other investments in the Phipps Tuberculosis Dispensary, Henry Phipps decided to donate $1.5 million to fund psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. William Welch, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, quickly appointed Adolf Meyer as the director of the clinic, a renowned psychiatrist at the time.