Faith Spicer OBE (MB, BS, JP)

Dr Faith Spicer, who recently died at the age of 95, was a truly resolute pioneer in the fields of family planning, sexual counselling and the psychiatry of adolescence. She was acutely aware of the shame and moral outrage that in her time was associated with premarital sexual intercourse and its often appalling consequences, not least dangerous, back-street abortions. At that time, women students who became pregnant were seeking abortions for fear of their being sent down. Illegitimate birth rates were accelerating at an alarming rate. Something needed to be done to challenge the prevailing prejudices and it was testimony to Faith's courage that she entered so powerfully into the fray. In recognition of the predicament of young women who were struggling with their sexuality in a changing society of the 1950s and early 1960s, she became a vigorous campaigner on their behalf for greater public awareness and improved psychosexual services. Her work was controversial, occurring as it did in what were very unsettling times for many people. Religious and moral pressures to uphold the virtues of virginity before marriage were slowly having to face, and adjust to the emergence of, a spirit of greater sexual freedom, which was soon to be further facilitated by the impact of the new technology of its time, the oral contraceptive pill. Faith was viewed with much suspicion but also greeted, especially by the young, with relief and gratitude. She first practised contraceptive counselling in the Marie Stopes Clinic, whose mission was to prevent unwanted pregnancies. In 1963 she was appointed Medical Director of the Brook Advisory Centre. After 4 years she resigned from that post because she objected to those in management who wanted to speed up the process of contraceptive advice and increase the number of young people being seen. Faith took a more measured view of the work that was required, arguing that consultations should not be rushed. The issue for her was not so much that of the contraceptive pill itself as of the emotional confusion and turmoil that was often associated with sexual life and development. In 1969 she founded the London Youth Advisory Centre (LYAC), later renamed the Brandon Centre and eventually sited in Kentish Town, London. This established a new model of service for adolescents from the age of 12 up to 25, combining contraceptive advice and counselling/psychotherapy. Dr Gill Hinshelwood, one of Faith's closest colleagues in …