05/27/2026
NewBridge on the Charles resident Judith Huizenga said she wanted to become a psychiatrist for as long as she could remember.
Sharing a story from when she was 3 years old, Huizenga described seeing her father, Fred Nichols, at home on the couch, despondent and quiet, having been out of work for about six months.
"In walked his old friend from college, Dr. Morton, who was a psychiatrist. I noticed that they sat and talked, and when Dr. Morton got up and left, my father seemed better," Huizenga said. Her father later became a certified public accountant, and his firm, F.W. Nichols and Company, was the largest independent accounting firm in Alabama.
Huizenga also cited a superhero as an influence in her life and career. She was familiar with the likes of Superman, the Lone Ranger, and Jack Armstrong through the 5 o'clock radio hour, and noticed a pattern.
"Jack Armstrong was called the All-American Boy. So was Superman, so was every superhero. I said, 'I want to be a superhero too, just like Jack Armstrong,' and along came Mary Marvel. I could pretend to be Mary Marvel, and I was in the backyard, saving people from drowning," she said.
She began her studies at Duke University due to its strong pre-medical program.
"My friends, my peers there, were all very intelligent women, but they had no plans to go to medical school. In those days, in 1956, women were expected to marry, have children, and be a support to their husbands," Huizenga said. Despite that, she did pursue medical school at Northwestern University. She was the youngest student there, and one of four women among 115 people.
Huizenga described facing resistance, with some people claiming the female students were taking a man's place in the field and others claiming you couldn't be both a good doctor and a good mother. She persevered.
"However, when I finished the year, I didn't feel right," she said. "Could I really be a hero and save lives? If any of you have seen 'The Pitt,' which I love, so many times they say 'I can't do this, I'm going to leave.' I was quite uncertain, and I took a leave of absence."
During that year, she taught physics at a local high school.
"Guess who came to my house? The old Dr. Morton. He simply said, 'Get out of here,'" she said. "So I did. I took a plane, went back to Chicago, re-entered my sophomore year, and reconnected with an old boyfriend from the first year who said, and I quote, 'I want a wife who is independent and has her own career.' That seemed good to me, and we got married during the second year."
Her husband, Charles, was accepted as a pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and they moved to Boston. Judith studied psychoanalysis at Massachusetts Mental Health Center under Dr. Elvin Semrad, who encouraged his students to listen with empathy and understanding, speak kindly, and meet the patient where they are to discover what was holding them up and how to help them.
"This was very different from what I had expected. I thought we would be like analysts in the movies, sitting behind the patient, not saying anything, trying to get them to talk about what was on their mind," Huizenga said.
Her career included two years as a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, which she described as her favorite job of all time, and working as a psychoanalyst.
"My professors were all analysts, and I really love the unconscious. It is just a fascinating place: a place where thoughts and feelings exist that you don't know about that influence your decisions, give you a sense of creativity, but can also give you bad feelings," Huizenga said. "It seemed like a wonderful way to explore what someone might not know about themselves that was either getting in the way or helping."
She described Sigmund Freud's royal road of the unconscious, including topics like free association, dream analysis, and analysis of transference. She also discussed the works of John Bowlby, Donald Winnicott, and Erik Erikson.
Huizenga's talk was part of the NewBridge Residents Presents series, which provides residents with the opportunity to share their stories and experiences, and discuss what matters most to them with the community at large.
