Hinkle had considered studying law, but after being discouraged by her husband "with a good hardy laugh", she entered Cooper Medical College (now part of Stanford University) in 1895.

Tired of hearing Freud's assertion that female psyche was a derivation of the male's, Dr. Hinkle returned to New York in 1915 determined to spread Jung's words in America.

She explained that " This important group of ideas or impressions, those that come out from the patient's mind while being psychoanalyzed, with the feelings and emotions clustered around them which are betrayed through this painful process, was called by Jung a complex" (Hinkle, 1916, p. 14).

[full citation needed] Dr. Hinkle thought that one of the most attractive parts of Jung's theories was referred to the relief for those in revolt against the repressive character of the patriarchal society that under girded Freud's worldview (Karier, 1986).

[full citation needed] Thus Jung's consideration of the female psyche as independent from males, attracted the admiration of Dr. Hinkle in such degree that she became the official translator of his work in America.

[citation needed] Hinkle was a member of the Greenwich Village based feminist network, the Heterodoxy Club, lending credence to the group by being the only professionally trained and practicing psychoanalyst.