More people read
The Bell Jar than Plath biographies,
and for them Esther Greenwood’s psychiatrist, the good “Dr. Nolan,” arrived in summer 1953 out of
nowhere and fades out at the end. Biographies say Sylvia Plath and Dr. Ruth Beuscher met
again in 1954 and 1958-59, but that story usually ends with Sylvia’s death in 1963. Most research treats Sylvia Plath as an end in herself. On this site, there is a before and a beyond. The bulk of Sylvia’s
career has been posthumous. She actually hoped for that. And a person who influenced Sylvia as Beuscher did ought
not to vanish because a book cuts her off. So here’s “RB” as you haven’t seen her.
Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse, born in 1923, was the eldest
child of a authoritarian Presbyterian fundamentalist preacher, her
mother a missionary who died in her forties. Ruth
and siblings had high IQs and were rigidly home-schooled to be prodigies and whiz-kids and recite whole chapters from the Bible. After her first year at Vassar, Ruth, 17, eloped to Santa Fe with a young
Mr. Edmonds she met at a retreat.
The New York Times announced the
marriage, maybe because her father Rev. Donald Barnhouse was a
radio star, his “Bible Study Hour” broadcast
coast-to-coast. He died in 1960 and his tapes still have avid listeners. Rev.
Billy Graham said, “He knew the Scriptures better than any man I ever knew.”
Ruth had two children with Edmonds and in 1947 divorced him
in Reno, where the above photo was taken. She sold flowers at the courthouse for six weeks to make money. The Edmonds' divorce was again
New York Times-worthy news. Photos
of young Ruth are hard to find; the Wilmington, Delaware, newspaper ran the photo on top of this post, with its caption reproduced at right.
Ruth married med-school classmate Bill Beuscher in 1950, and as psychiatrist
Dr. Ruth Beuscher, M.D., met Sylvia Plath at McLean Hospital. Beuscher was a
working professional woman, brilliant, attractive, and married with children -- all that Sylvia hoped to be. Sylvia loved Dr. Beuscher, also known as “Dr. B,” a “permissive mother
figure” and granter of wishes. Sylvia refused therapy with anyone else and in her final days in London requested a female psychiatrist she didn't live to meet.
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| Earrings show the doctor's fashion flair. |
A
Boston Globe article, 15 December 1957, headlined “Child Psychiatrist Quits In Hospital Squabble,” says after Beuscher left McLean she was hired to head a children’s psychiatric clinic but resigned. Beuscher explained: “What I was trying to do was to bring the children's unit up to top efficiency even if it meant the shifting of some senior employees.” The senior employees were all men. They called it a personality clash. With the article is a photo of her, taken in profile.
Beuscher then set up her private
practice, meeting Sylvia for regular therapy sessions in 1958-59. Sylvia suffered from writer’s block and concern about the man she’d married. The pair explored
Sylvia’s family issues. Sylvia decided having a baby would solve her
problems.
In England Sylvia’s marriage fell apart and Sylvia asked "Ruth" for therapy by mail. Ruth advised her to get a lawyer and not sleep with her
cheating husband, or the court might think her unserious. Ted Hughes really ran
with Ruth's instruction, “Keep him out of your bed.” He repeated that in
poems and letters, as if it was sick or sinister and as if
he was entitled. It was good advice.
