Hinkle, Beatrice M. (1874–1953)

American psychiatrist who was one of the earliest U.S. proponents of Carl Jung. Born Beatrice M. Van Giesen on October 10, 1874, in San Francisco, California; died on February 28, 1953, in New York City; daughter of B. Frederick Mores Van Giesen and Elizabeth (Benchley) Van Giesen; educated at private schools and with tutors; graduated from Cooper Medical School (later medical department, Stanford University), 1899; married Walter Scott Hinkle (a lawyer), in 1892 (d. February 7, 1899); children: Walter Mills Hinkle; Consuelo Andoga Shepard .

Beatrice M. Van Giesen was born on October 10, 1874, in San Francisco, California. It was not until after her marriage in 1892, that Beatrice Hinkle entered the Cooper Medical College with hopes of becoming a doctor. Graduating in 1899, the year of her husband's death, she was appointed San Francisco's city physician and as such became the first woman doctor in the United States to hold a public-health position. In 1905, a growing interest in psychotherapy led her to New York, where in 1908, she and Dr. Charles R. Dana established the first psychotherapeutic clinic at Cornell Medical College. Between 1909 and 1915, Hinkle studied in Europe, first with Sigmund Freud in Vienna, and later with Carl Jung, whose theories she later espoused.

Returning to New York in 1915, Hinkle joined the faculties of Cornell Medical College and the New York Post Graduate Medical school, where she became one of the earliest practitioners of Jungian analysis and also made some valuable contributions to the framework of his theories. Her writings included a translation of Jung's The Psychology of the Unconscious (1915) and her major work, The Recreation of the Individual (1923). She also published a number of articles and a translation of Dirk Coster's The Living and the Lifeless (1929).

In her later years, Beatrice Hinkle divided her time between New York City and "Roughlands," a retreat in Washington, Connecticut, where she also ran a small sanitarium. She died on February 28, 1953, in New York City.