Ascent Interrupted: The Psychiatric Career of Mary Barkas

Abstract

Mary Barkas is largely unknown. A turn-of-the-twentieth century child prodigy from Christchurch, New Zealand, she was deeply frustrated by parochial attitudes in a remote colony which made little allowance for intelligent women doing tertiary studies. Determined to pursue medical studies, Barkas went to London and qualified as a doctor in 1919. She excelled in psychiatry training but came up against the prejudice against employing women doctors. In the face of opposition, she became the first female doctor in the 600-year history of the Bethlem Hospital. She decided to be a psychoanalyst, spending three months in a training analysis with Otto Rank in Vienna in 1922. In 1924 Barkas was one of the four medical officers appointed at the opening of the Maudsley Hospital, a career high point. By 1927 she was disillusioned about getting a permanent position. She took a position as medical superintendent of The Lawns, a private psychiatric hospital in Lincoln, a disastrous decision. By 1932, the hospital was on the edge of bankruptcy, she was upset by the suicide of a patient and depressed about her prospects. She returned to New Zealand, living in remote Tapu and never practised again. Barkas died in isolation in 1957. Barkas’s career provides information on British psychiatry and psychoanalysis in the twenties. Her letters give a detailed description of how the Maudsley Hospital was set up, the treatment programs and the leading personalities. Her analysis with Otto Rank In Vienna provides details of her treatment, as well as mixing with the analytic luminaries such as Freud. Her return to New Zealand is something of a mystery; without the correspondence with Fred to refer to, her state of mind and activities remain unclear and it can only be speculated what had, in fact, actually happened. The life and career of Mary Barkas has been neglected for too long.