Psychological Figure: Beatrice Hinkle

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1. Beatrice Hinkle: Could you please describe her background, theoretical perspective, and contributions to the field of psychology?

A. Background:

Beatrice Moses Hinkle (1874-1953) was born in San Francisco. She was privately educated, and enjoyed the arts and literature. Beatrice was an extraordinary thinker. She had the strong encouragement of her parents who were committed to educational methods and thrive for success, but little else is known about her family relations. In 1892, Beatrice married Walter S. Hinkle, a lawyer and assistant district attorney, and that same year entered the Cooper Medical School which later was taken over by Stanford University. Sadly, her husband died in 1899 after only seven years of marriage.

Beatrice Hinkle, whose own interest in psychological processes led her to a medical degree and a psychoanalytic career. Beatrice overcome her grief for her husband through working hard, graduated from the medical school and became a talented and dedicated physician. She was appointed as San Francisco's city physician. This particular fact was very important in her career because this was the very first time a female doctor was given such a responsibility. Hinkle was the first woman physician in the country to hold a public health position. While working as a physician, Hinkle became very intrigued in the time's latest method of mental treatment: psychotherapy and the controversy created by Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalysis. Her curiosity and her search for more information about psychoanalysis resulted in a move to New York City (1905), where she soon became associated with Dr. Charles R. Dana who helped her to get familiar with the psychoanalytic theory. Hinkle's fascination with the human unconscious was so enormous that in 1908, both Hinkle and Dana, founded the country's first psychotherapeutic clinic at Cornell Medical School (McHenry, 1980).

Hinkle's main goal was to personally meet the creator of the psychoanalytic theory, Sigmund Freud, so she went to Vienna in 1909 to study under Freud's guidance. However, Freud's lack of recognition to women's psychological autonomy led her to change her mind about Freud's understanding of the human psyche. Instead, she aligned herself with the psychoanalytic group that supported Carl Jung's theories which were less biased than Freud's, and tended to prove Freud wrong in some aspects of his theories.

Hinkle was fascinated with Jung's ideas and proposals, mainly because they were more adaptable to both males and ...