Ivor Browne

Background

Ivor Browne was born in 1929 to a middle-class family from Sandycove, Dublin.

Education

He attended secondary school at Blackrock College, where he discovered jazz music, and began playing the trumpet.

Career

He is known for his opposition to traditional psychiatry, and his scepticism about psychiatric drugs. He said that he was a dreamy, often miserable child. After Blackrock College, he went to a secretarial school, and gained admission to the Royal College of Surgeons.

During his time in the college of surgeons, he had several bouts of tuberculosis, which diverted him from being a musician.

In 1955, he became a qualified doctor. According to Browne, his professor of medicine in the Richmond Hospital told him that: "You"re only fit to be an obstetrician or a psychiatrist." He had little interest in general medicine, and decided to become a psychiatrist.

He started his internship in a neurosurgical unit, where he assisted a surgeon. He said of his work there:

Browne went on to work both in the United Kingdom and in the United States. He was awarded a scholarship to study public and community mental health in Harvard.

After returning to Ireland, he became the fifth Medical Superintendent of Grangegorman Mental Hospital (Street Brendan"s) and he was made Professor of psychiatry at University College Dublin and Chief Psychiatrist of the Eastern Health Board.

Browne experimented with LSD as a means to encourage regression experiences both in his personal life and professionally. He has campaigned against what he sees as an overuse of medications in modern psychiatry.

He said:

He has used psychiatric medications with his patients, but he says that he uses a fraction of the drugs prescribed by modern psychiatrists. Notable patients

Tóibín says that: "He"s just a good doctor, a kind man who would get up in the middle of the night for people.

There"s an aura off him which is almost holy."

Phyllis Hamilton was a patient of Doctor Browne in Saint Loman"s hospital.

Later, she conceived two children with French Michael Cleary while she was living as his housekeeper. He was denounced by the Church for being antagonistic towards lieutenant

In 1997, Professor Browne was censured by the Irish Medical Council for publicly confirming Hamilton"s story.

The council accepted that he had acted in the best interests of his patient, but found that he had gone beyond what was ethically permissible. Phyllis Hamilton said that she believed that he had acted properly when disclosing information about her relationship with Michael Cleary.

Browne set up the Irish Foundation for Human Development, and started the first community association in Ireland in Ballyfermot, which worked to try to turn it into a thriving community.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Ivor Browne: Music and Madness by Ivor Browne (1-Apr-2009) Paperback

    (Will be shipped from US. Brand new copy.)

  • Ivor Browne: Music and Madness
  • (Ivor Browne: Music and Madness ) Author: Ivor Browne Jul-2008
  • Ivor Browne: Music and Madness by Ivor Browne (2009-04-01)

Views

Attitude to drugs.

Connections

Friend:

June Levine