In Memorium Hilde Scheuer Burton March 23, 1923 — February 9, 2011

Hilde Burton, eminent depth psychologist, died unexpectedly but peacefully at her home in Berkeley on February 9, 2011. The founding clinic coordinator at the UC Berkeley psychology clinic and a founding member of The Psychotherapy Institute, she mentored countless Bay Area psychotherapists, clinical psychologists and masters level therapists alike.

Hilde was born on March 23, 1923, in Heldenbergen, Germany. Her family was Jewish and fled the Nazis in 1936, having the good fortune of a close relative in San Francisco who sponsored their emigration to this country. Learning English in what seemed in retrospect to be a few weeks, the 13-year-old Hilde enrolled in public schools and graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco. She received her BA and her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley.

She was chief psychologist at Children's Hospital of the East Bay before beginning to train new generations of clinical psychologists at Cal. She was on the Board and the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, where she remained active almost up to her death. She wrote several papers, especially focused on tolerating unknowing and on the need for humility in the face of the mystery of the psychotherapy process, but her most powerful impact was through her supervisory work, where she helped tens of younger therapists to become the best they could be. She was in active private practice until the end of 2009.

She loved opera, music, travel, reading, film, theater, and art. Her generosity was legendary. She supported such cultural charities as the opera and Cal Performances, but, even more critically, she gave to all those who knew her with her love, her spirit, her support, and her wisdom. Although in the end it was her heart that failed, those who had the good fortune to know her knew that her heart's capacity had no limit.