Tributes for doctor who ‘demystified psychiatry’

TRIBUTES were paid to the life’s work of renowned psychiatrist and broadcaster Anthony Clare, who died suddenly over the weekend.

Colleagues praised the 64-year-old’s passion for his work. Professor Clare had demystified psychiatry for the public, explained his friend Patricia Casey, professor of adult psychiatry at University College Dublin.

“At a time when people thought psychiatrists had two horns and locked people up, he was the psychiatrist all over the media talking about what we did,” she told RTÉ.

Prof Clare died suddenly in Paris over the weekend. He was due to retire in two months’ time from Edmondsbury Hospital in Lucan, Dublin.

He previously worked as the medical director of St Patrick’s Hospital. Renowned for his broadcasting ability, he hosted a number of shows in the 1970s and 1980s, including the television programme, All In The Mind. He also had his own programme on BBC radio called In The Psychiatrist’s Chair.

Tributes were paid by officials with Channel 4 and BBC yesterday, whose stations he had broadcast on.

Controversial interviews on In the Psychiatrist’s Chair included presenter Esther Rantzen’s admission that she was always insecure about her looks, and Bob Monkhouse breaking down emotionally after revealing that for 20 years, his mother had not spoken to him.

Prof Clare had used his talents on air ensuring gripping interviews, stressed Prof Casey.

“He took psychiatry out of the closet. There were several people who had broken down and cried at his interviews who by their own admission had not cried for many, many years. He had that skill.”

She said he had been the best-known psychiatrist in Ireland and Britain at one stage. He had challenged theories of Sigmund Freud and he was an advocate of male issues.

Prof Clare, who was a professor of clinical psychiatry at Trinity College, Dublin, was famously against the concept of psychoanalysis.

He had once referred to it as being “the most stupendous confidence trick of the century”.

Dr Jim Lucey, a consultant psychiatrist said Prof Clare had been an inspiration for the profession.

Prof Clare is survived by his wife Jane and seven children.