Anthony Clare was a psychiatrist with a fascination for celebrity, which in turn brought him considerable fame. He was best known as the presenter of the long-running radio series In the Psychiatrist's Chair, in which he used the licence that his profession afforded him to probe the psyches of those in the public eye in a manner that would have been impossible for any lay interviewer.

This series, in combination with Clare's other journalistic outlets (he wrote numerous newspaper and magazine articles, and was much in demand as a provider of television documentary voiceovers) earned him the reputation of being “the pop psychiatrist”. This title accurately reflected his position as the pre-eminent representative of his vocation in the media, but belied a career in conventional psychiatry which was distinguished by any standards. It did, however, capture a note of the suspicion with which some viewed Clare's journalistic activities, believing him guilty of trivialising his vocation to the dubious end of mass entertainment.

Such suspicion probably owed more to professional jealousy or to a reflexive British distrust of psychiatrists than to reality. Clare never pretended that his interviews for In the Psychiatrist's Chair mimicked authentic psychiatric practice, likening them instead to an assessment before a course of treatment. Clare had in fact initially wanted to call the series What Makes You Tick? This was vetoed by radio bosses, who wanted a title with greater gravitas.

He could also point to the programme's beneficial effect in debunking the myth that the famous were not subject to the psychological vicissitudes of ordinary people, and also that his soothing manner did much to allay popular fears about his profession. Yet the impression remained that Clare felt the need to justify himself. Although he openly admitted to the attractions that fame held for him (both that of his subjects and his own), he claimed only to have entered journalism because of the necessity of supplementing his income to provide for his large family.

Whatever the motivation behind it, In the Psychiatrist's Chair could be compelling listening. Clare was a good listener and an even better talker, with a silky Irish burr that oozed reassurance and perceptiveness. He habitually created an atmosphere of cosy intimacy (which was lost under the bright lights and bustle of the television studio when Clare briefly attempted to transpose the formula on to that medium in the series Motives).

Clare's technique was to coax rather than force out revealing information from his subjects, although he was prepared to push a point should they lapse into celebrity auto-pilot. Among the more striking revelations he succeeded in teasing out were the novelist Tom Sharpe's fears that he would scream obscenities should he enter a church. Interviewees who remained resolutely unforthcoming were rare (Geoffrey Boycott and Paul Johnson were notable examples, and in both cases their refusal to play spoke volumes), although Clare was careful to avoid all but the most maverick of politicians (such as Edwina Currie and Ken Livingstone), on the very reasonable grounds that they were unlikely to enter into the spirit of the thing.

Ever mindful that potential or actual patients from his clinicial practice might be listening to In the Psychiatrist's Chair, Clare took pains to avoid any hint of the coldness and brutality of which his spiritual forebear John Freeman had been accused in the television series Face to Face in the 1950s, in one episode of which he had notoriously reduced Gilbert Harding to tears. He did, however, have the same effect on the agony aunt Clare Rayner, who began crying when Clare pushed her on the subject of her unhappy childhood. At first terrified that the episode would damage her readers' trust in her, she forgave Clare when it became clear that the interview had had the opposite effect.

Clare was raised in Dublin, the youngest of three children born to a state solicitor and a socially frustrated wife who was fiercely ambitious for her only son. (Clare described his mother as “impossible to please” and traced his interest in psychiatry to his vain attempts as a child to discover what motivated her.) He was educated by the Jesuits of Gonzaga College in Dublin, whose ideal of a life service allied to power he thoroughly absorbed, if not their religious faith.

He progressed to the University College Dublin medical school. While there he harnessed his debating skills, learnt with the Jesuits, to become auditor (student president) of the main college debating society, the Literary and Historical. In 1964, in partnership with the late Patrick Cosgrave (historian and an early Thatcher acolyte) the combative Clare won the Observer Mace trophy open to all universities of these islands.

He decided to specialise in psychiatry, influenced by R.D. Laing's book The Divided Self. His early years in practice were spent in St Patrick's Hospital and he also busied himself writing regularly for the Irish Medical Times. At the Maudsley hospital in London, to which he moved in 1970, he continued to write and caused a sensation when his article Psychiatry in Dissent, published in 1976, denounced the poor state of psychiatry in Britain and Ireland.

It was during this period that Clare first entered broadcasting, as a regular on the radio programme Stop the Week.

In 1983 he was appointed head of psychiatric medicine at Barts (where a weekly round at Hackney Hospital kept his feet on the ground and stimulated his ire at social and economic deprivation), a post he held until 1989, when he returned to Dublin and the medical directorship of Saint Patrick's. Clare's research interests included premenstrual tension (the subject of his doctorate), depression and alcholism, and he was the author of a number of well-regarded books.

Back in Ireland after 1989, Clare held forth in the media on public issues, and a political career was predicted. After an unsuccessful run for the Senate for one of the university constituencies in 1992, he decided that politics would restrict him overmuch in expressing his true views. He was active in the campaign for the introduction of divorce, which came about in 1996. After the deaths of his parents, he showed signs of being unsettled, baring his soul and his own family secrets to the world as he had not done before. He even confessed to feeling socially inferior to his wife.

Out of this mood of introspection emerged his book on Masculinity in Crisis, published in 2000. Women, he maintained, had invaded the inner temples of male power and influence, making men feel redundant. In order to survive, Clare argued, men have to evolve from their old roles of being dominant emotional cripples and regain their confidence, not in the ruthless competition of the public arena but in the intimacy of personal relationships.

Clare realised that he had put an unnecessary strain on his own family relationships by his constant absences to do radio and television programmes in England, where he was made more welcome than on the Irish stations. At last he listened to his patient and balanced wife when she uttered her refrain “Stop planning; start living”. Never a man to do things by halves he decided in 2002 to abandon all his activities outside his profession. He grew a beard.

Clare was a slim, hyperactive, fit man of below average height with a fast ticker-tape style of speaking. He was intense and could be cutting. Some colleagues accused him of ruthlessness but others testified to his helpfulness and dedication, especially when the welfare of patients was at stake. Even the beard he grew did not deprive him of his exceptionally youthful mien.

He was due to retire from his post as associate professor of psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin next month.

He is survived by his wife, Jane, (whom he met in University College Dublin and married in 1966) and their seven children.

Professor Anthony Clare, psychiatrist and broadcaster, was born on December 24, 1942. He died suddenly on October 28, 2007, aged 64