DR BRIAN O'CONNELL:DR BRIAN O'CONNELL, who has died aged 82, was a pioneer of adolescent psychiatry and founder and long-time medical director of the Northgate Clinic in Edgeware, Middlesex.
That clinic was described recently in the press as "an unconventional, holistic and extremely successful centre for teenagers with mental health problems".
Established in 1968, it was a response to the scandal of young people being admitted to adult mental health wards. Northgate initially focused on the problems of boys who had been in trouble with the law. Most referrals were from probation officers, solicitors or directly from the courts.
Within 18 months, however, it began to admit girls and soon became a more general unit taking almost any diagnosis - psychotic as well as the more common depression and self-harm cases. Northgate went on to break new ground in looking at the critical transition from late childhood to early adulthood.
Dr O'Connell, with a background in forensic psychiatry, prescribed drugs sparingly. The emphasis was on providing young people in trouble with people to talk to, think with and listen to. The approach relied on manpower and the quality of staff.
The clinic, funded by the National Health Service, housed 22 young people, and had a full-time staff of 50 - 60 when part-timers were included.
Dr Freddie Gainza, consultant psychiatrist and lead clinician at Northgate, paid tribute to Dr O'Connell as "the undisputed authority on everything that happened in Northgate".
Born in 1926, he was one of seven children of Timothy and Kathleen O'Connell. His father was a senior official at the Department of Agriculture, and the family lived at Iona Drive, Glasnevin, Dublin. Educated at Belvedere College, he studied medicine at University College Dublin and graduated in 1950. He began his medical career at the Mater and St Vincent's hospitals.
He secured a diploma in psychiatric medicine in 1953, but as there were few openings for psychiatry in Dublin he emigrated to Britain in 1954. He recently recalled his arrival: "Stepping off the flight from Ireland to London, I had such a rush of freedom that I can still feel it today."
He spent four years as research registrar at Crichton Royal Hospital, Dumfries, followed by two years at St George's Hospital, London, with which he continued to be associated for a further 20 years.
From 1961 to 1967 he was a consultant at the Maudesley Hospital, with an attachment to Broadmoor. Patrick McGrath, whose father was medical superintendent at Broadmoor, later dedicated his novel Asylumto him, acknowledging "his assistance in matters of psychiatry".
In the early 1960s a World Health Organisation fellowship enabled him travel to the United States, where he visited prisons for the criminally insane. While in the US, he formed a relationship with the Washington Timesjournalist Ann Geracimos.
On his return to London, however, in 1964 he married the actress Fionnuala O'Shannon, who made her name at the Gate theatre and was a sister of the broadcaster Cathal O'Shannon.
They enjoyed what a friend described as a "long and lively marriage". Some years after his wife's death in 1992, he met Ms Geracimos again and they became close companions.
Known outside his profession as a scholar of immense intellectual vitality, he was a bon viveurof renowned tenacity. His wide circle of friends was described by the journalist Cal McCrystal as being dominated by "broadsheet journalists, littérateurs, theatrical people, artists, poker players and philosophers, both amateur and practising".
His friend Lelia Doolan recalled "a most prodigious reader, a great man to ransack all opinion in a newspaper; open to all experiences and full of appreciative savour or, more rarely, of sweeping condemnation".
Remembered by his niece Ruth Doyle for his "puckish character", he defied conventional medical opinion by surviving three years with pancreatic cancer.
A former consultant to Stamford House Remand Centre for Adolescents, he also served as a member of the Mental Health Review Tribunal, the body of appeal for people sectioned against their will.
His sisters Nuala and Ethna, nieces Susan and Ruth, and nephews David and Jonathan survive him.
Brian O'Connell: born November 6th, 1926; died September 18th, 2009.