Dr. Louis H. Mutschler, psychiatrist known for wry wit

“He was sort of irreverent and a fierce advocate for his patients,’’ said Dr. Robert M. Stern, who worked with him for 20 years. “He also was a great advocate for the physicians in the hospital.’’

Dr. Mutschler, who was director of the hospital’s psychiatric services department for 15 years until he retired in 2000, died of prostate cancer at his home in Lincoln July 6. He was 69.

“As a physician, he has provided healing and comfort to countless thousands,’’ said Patrick Doyle of Fitchburg, who worked with him in the 1980s.

Born in Philadelphia, Dr. Mutschler grew up in Merion, Pa., where he attended Episcopal Academy. His father was a surgeon; and his mother, a nurse.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Trinity College in Hartford in 1961 and his medical degree in 1965 at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He completed his residency in psychiatry at Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston.

A towering man at 6-foot-4, he became a doctor in the Vietnam era. He was a captain in the Air Force and was assigned from 1969 to the early 1970s to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. His duties included observing the academy’s programs for training cadets how to handle themselves if captured by the enemy.

When another in a series of cheating scandals was uncovered at the academy in the 1970s, Dr. Mutschler wrote an op-ed column published in the Globe titled, “Air Force teaches cadets to cheat.’’ He blamed the academy’s atmosphere and hazing traditions for stoking a culture conducive to the scandal.

He was in college when he met his wife Phyllis, while she was a freshman at Mount Holyoke College. They were married 48 years and had three children.

“He was irreverent and had a great sense of humor,’’ she recalled of her early impressions of Dr. Mutschler.

When they were dating, he told her that his mother was “a lady wrestler’’ and that his father had been her manager. His wife said she initially believed the story until her own family suggested he was pulling her leg.

She fondly recalled their years in Colorado when she and Dr. Mutschler took the entire family, including their 9-month-old son, on a trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Her husband “loved being outdoors, hiking and canoeing and kayaking,’’ she said.

In the 1970s, Dr. Mutschler was director of the adolescent unit at Boston State Hospital before he was hired at Emerson in 1974. He became director of psychiatry in 1985.

He had a gift for quickly establishing rapport with his patients and winning their trust, colleagues said. He taught first-year students from Tufts Medical School how to interview patients.

Dr. Mutschler also strongly believed in participatory democracy. He loved the open Town Meeting form of government in Lincoln and kept a sense of free exchange in his administrative style at the hospital, Doyle said.

“Whether you were a new, entry-level counselor or a colleague physician or administrator, he was equally and always receptive and responsive,’’ Doyle said.

In 2000, Dr. Mutschler retired from the hospital and went into private practice for several years, until he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in late 2006.

He turned to one of his favorite hobbies, woodworking. He restored and built several canoes, including a one-seater design known as a Wee Lassie, a favorite of several family members.

At his memorial service, his family plans to play a recording of the haunting calls of lake loons.

In addition to his wife, Dr. Mutschler leaves his daughter, Deborah of Medford; two sons, Ben of Corvallis, Ore., and Ethan of Framingham; and three grandchildren.

A memorial service is planned at 1:30 p.m. today at the John H. Pierce House in Lincoln. Burial will be private.