This book charts the growth of one man's journey in relation to psychiatry and human development. Ivor Browne was a central and controversial figure in Irish life up until his retirement as Chief Psychiatrist of Ireland's Eastern Health Board in 1994.
Compassionate and compelling, Ivor Browne's voice is as incisive as it is unique. This compendium
of extraordinary papers and essays reflects more than five decades of research, reflection and clinical
practice. It documents and explores Professor Browne's life-long journey of scientific enquiry,
therapeutic evolution and personal development, and is an excellent companion volume to the
equally impressive Music and Madness. The Irish intellectual landscape contains very few thinkers
who can match his intoxicating combination of scientific method, intellectual rigour and willingness
to evolve in his thinking over the course of his remarkable career.
Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, University College Dublin
~Brendan Kelly
Ivor Browne is a great psychiatrist and an original thinker. These eloquent and searching essays chart
the progress of his mind as he sought to find new ways not only to heal his patients, but to work out
a better way for the society around them to progress. They are important documents because
they display a single mind developing ideas over half a century; they are a vital contribution to the
history of psychiatry in our time.
~Colm Toibin
Ivor Browne, both personally and professionally, stands for compassion, accessibility, innovation,
respect for others, and above all, independent thinking. This collection of essays and other
writings gives us a clear chronological insight into the development of that thinking, the challenges
he encountered, and the resulting profound changes in himself and those he influenced over a
period of fifty years. It is an invaluable guide to the formation of one of the most remarkable people in
Ireland.
Head of Special Projects, National Archives of Ireland
~Catriona Crowe
As a final year medical student with Ivor Browne in the late 1980s, I greedily purloined many of
these papers from his (always open!) office and still have the dog-eared, underlined copies in a large
lever arch file marked "Ivor". I knew then, as now, that these writings were not just the reflections of
a learned man, but urgent messages. How we relate to suffering, both our own and that of others,
is one of the great challenges of being a human being. These papers starkly illustrate how removed
Irish society, and the modern world in general, has become from this theme. Listen to this man! Join
him in understanding that we must redefine our relationship with many things.... Never angry or hopeless, often
humorous, almost always offering a (albeit often radical!) solution, these writings are those of a wise
and gentle giant.
Consultant Psychiatrist, Dublin North Mental Health, Services and Senior Lecturer, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
~Malcolm Garland
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