Joseph Berke
Encyclopedia
Early years
He studied at Columbia College of Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and graduated from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a graduate school of Yeshiva University. It is a not-for-profit, private, nonsectarian medical school located on the Jack and Pearl Resnick Campus in the Morris Park neighborhood of the borough of the Bronx of New York City...
in New York. He moved to London in 1965 where Berke worked with R. D. Laing
Ronald David Laing
Ronald David Laing was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illnessin particular, the experience of psychosis...
in the 1960s when the Philadelphia Association
Philadelphia Association
The Philadelphia Association is a UK "charity concerned with the understanding and relief of mental suffering." It was founded in 1965 by the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst R. D...
was set up, and was resident at Kingsley Hall
Kingsley Hall
Kingsley Hall is a community centre in the East End of London. It dates back to the work of Doris Lester and Muriel Lester, who had a nursery school in nearby Bruce Road. Their brother, Kingsley Lester, died aged 26 in 1914, leaving money for work in the local area for "educational, social and...
, where he helped Mary Barnes
Mary Barnes
Mary Edith Barnes was an English artist and writer who suffered from schizophrenia but recovered to become a successful painter. She is particularly known for her documentation of her experience at R.D...
, a nurse who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia to emerge from madness. Barnes later became a famous artist, writer and mystic. A stage play based on the book that Berke and Barnes wrote together (Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness) was adapted as a stage play by David Edgar. Berke collaborated on a number of projects with R. D. Laing including the Dialectics of Liberation international conference in London,15-30 July 1967. Berke was the principal organizer of the conference.
Books
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist for Individuals and Families.Co-Founder of the Arbours Association in London in 1970.
Co-Founder and Director of the Arbours Crisis Centre, London, and a lecturer and teacher,
Berke is the author of many articles and books on psychological, social, political and religious themes, including:
- Mary Barnes:Two Accounts of a Journey through Madness (with Mary BarnesMary BarnesMary Edith Barnes was an English artist and writer who suffered from schizophrenia but recovered to become a successful painter. She is particularly known for her documentation of her experience at R.D...
) - The Cannabis Experience: An Interpretative Study of the Effects of marijuana and Hashish (with Calvin Hernton) (1974), London: Peter Owen
- I Haven't Had To Go Mad Here
- The Tyranny of Malice: Exploring the Dark Side of Character and Culture
- Sanctuary: The Arbours Experience of Alternative Community Care (co-editor)
- Even Paranoids Have Enemies: New Perspectives on Paranoia and Persecution (co-editor).
His recent books include: 'Beyond Madness: PsychoSocial Interventions in Psychosis (co-editor); 'Malice Through the Looking Glass': and 'Centers of Power: The Convergence of Psychoanalysis and Kabbalah' (with Stanley Schneider).
He has recently completed: 'Why I Hate You and You Hate Me: A Study of Envy, Greed, Jealousy and Narcissism.'
See also
- R. D. Laing
- Mary BarnesMary BarnesMary Edith Barnes was an English artist and writer who suffered from schizophrenia but recovered to become a successful painter. She is particularly known for her documentation of her experience at R.D...
- David Smail (psychologist)David Smail (psychologist)David Smail is a clinical psychologist who is a proponent of a social materialist explanation of psychological distress. Born in Putney, London, on 23 April 1938, he grew up in Epsom and Wimbledon....
- Leon RedlerLeon RedlerLeon Redler is a doctor of medicine, a psychiatrist, a psychotherapist, and teacher of the Alexander Technique.He was a part of the experiment in radical psychiatry at Kingsley Hall between 1965 and 1970, along with other members of the Philadelphia Association including R. D...