Helen Flanders Dunbar facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Helen Flanders Dunbar
Helen Dunbar, from the 1923 Bryn Mawr College yearbook
Born	May 14, 1902 Chicago, Illinois
Died	August 21, 1959
Occupation	Psychiatrist
Spouse(s)	Theodor Peter Wolfensberger, George Henry Soule Jr.

Helen Flanders Dunbar (born May 14, 1902 – died August 21, 1959) was a very important person in early American medicine. She helped create the field of psychosomatic medicine. This field studies how your mind (psyche) and body (soma) are connected and how they affect each other's health.

Dunbar believed that to truly help sick people, doctors needed to treat both their body and their mind or soul. She earned many degrees in different subjects like math, psychology, theology, philosophy, and medicine. In 1942, she started the American Psychosomatic Society and was the first editor of its magazine. She also worked hard to share information about public health, child development, and the importance of mental health care after World War II.

About Helen Dunbar's Life

Helen Flanders Dunbar was born into a wealthy family in Chicago, Illinois, on May 14, 1902. She was the oldest child. Her father, Francis William Dunbar, was an electrical engineer and mathematician. Her mother, Edith Vaughn Flanders, was a genealogist and translator.

As a child, Helen was often sick and described as intense and nervous. When she was twelve, her family moved to Manchester, Vermont. Helen was greatly influenced by the strong women in her family, especially her mother, grandmother, and aunt. Her mother was a strong supporter of women's rights.

Helen was a very smart and quiet person, much like her father. She was also very small as an adult, only 4 feet 11 inches tall. Her classmates at Yale University called her "Pocket Minerva" because she was so short but achieved so much.

She married her first husband, Theodor Peter Wolfensberger, in 1932. They divorced in 1939. In 1940, she married her second husband, George Henry Soule Jr., who was an economist. They had a daughter named Marcia in 1942.

Her Education Journey

Helen Dunbar was taught by private tutors and attended private schools. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1923 with degrees in math and psychology. She also earned a medical science degree from Columbia University in 1935.

While studying at Columbia University, she also attended Union Theological Seminary. She earned a degree in theology from there in 1927. Her studies in medieval literature, especially about Dante, influenced how she thought about medicine and healing.

At Columbia University, Helen was a top student and helped start a new way of thinking about psychiatry in hospitals. She received a special fellowship to travel to Europe in 1929. There, she met famous thinkers like Carl Jung and Helene Deutsch, learning more about the mind. She also trained with Anton Boisen, who helped start the Clinical Pastoral Education Movement.

She even visited healing places like Lourdes to learn more about how the mind affects healing. She noticed that people who came with "deep confidence and quiet" seemed to have the best results.

Her Career and Work

Helen Dunbar played a key role in the clinical pastoral education movement. This movement brought religious students and clergy into hospitals to learn how to provide care and counseling. She believed it was important for clergy to have clinical training and to understand how symbols relate to illness.

From 1930 to 1942, she was the first medical director of the Council for the Clinical Training of Theological Students in New York City. She also worked with the Federal Council of Churches and the New York Academy of Medicine. From 1941 to 1949, she taught at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.

In 1942, she founded the American Psychosomatic Society. She was also the first editor of its important journal, Psychosomatic Medicine.

Helen was also very interested in public health. She wrote books for parents about how children develop. After World War II, she worked hard to spread the word about how important mental health care was for everyone.

Many scholars have studied Helen Dunbar's life and work. The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education and the College for Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy even give out an annual award in her honor.

Her Research and Ideas

Dunbar strongly believed that the mind (psyche) and body (soma) are deeply connected. She thought doctors needed to pay attention to both for a patient to truly heal. She looked at the whole person and their life situation before diagnosing an illness.

She was one of the first to research if spiritual care could help people heal, though her results were not clear.

Her studies of Dante at Columbia University led her to the idea of an "insight symbol." She believed that symbols in medicine, like those in literature, can have many meanings and help us understand the whole person. She also tried to explain how psychological energy might affect the body, calling it "emotional thermodynamics." She thought that if mental energy couldn't be expressed, it might show up as physical symptoms.

One of her studies looked at a man named James Roe. She used his story to show how a very narrow view of God could lead to emotional problems. She encouraged religious teachers to use many different symbols to prevent people from focusing too much on just one idea.

Another study involved pregnant women. Dunbar believed that understanding a pregnant patient's dreams could help prevent problems like miscarriage. She thought that strong emotional stress during pregnancy could also affect the baby's health.

Dunbar believed that psychiatry and medicine could work together to find and prevent factors that cause disease. She and her colleagues even described a "cardiac type of personality," which was a very driven and ambitious male. This idea was similar to what is now known as a "Type A" personality.

Her Books

• Dunbar, H.F., Emotions and Bodily Changes, Columbia University Press, (New York), 1935.
• Dunbar, H.F., Mind and Body: Psychosomatic Medicine, Random House, (New York), 1947.
• Dunbar, H.F., Psychiatry in the Medical Specialties, McGraw-Hill, (New York), 1959.
• Dunbar, H.F., Psychosomatic Diagnosis, P.B. Hoeber, Inc., (New York), 1943.
• Dunbar, H.F., Symbolism in Medieval Thought and its Consummation in The Divine Comedy, Yale University Press, (New Haven), 1929.
• Dunbar, H.F., Your Child’s Mind and Body; a Practical Guide for Parents, Random House, (New York), 1949.

Later Life and Death

Towards the end of her life, Helen Dunbar faced several health problems. She passed away on August 21, 1959, likely from a heart attack.