Reference number
  • BERKE
Level of description
  • Collection
Date(s)
  • Creation: 1960-2003
Extent and medium
  • 80 boxes. approx
Category
  • Personal Papers
Scope and content
  • ┆Personal papers of Dr Joseph Berke including materials relating to the Institute of Phenomenological Studies, Research Committee on Cannabis, Fire Magazine and Arbours Association. Alongside these materials are the professional papers of Berke including notes for two publications 'Paranoia and Persecution' and 'Beyond Madness'. Within the collection is a series of correspondence regarding the Dialectics of Liberation International Congress 1967 including letters to/from: Dr Martin Luther King Jr Simone de Beauvoir Jean-Paul Satre Ted Huges Thich Nhat Hanh Michel Foucault Stokely Carmichael LeRoi Jones Allen Ginsberg Satish Kumar Claude Levi-Strauss There are many other correspondents who are not listed here. Please be aware that this correspondence mostly consists of invitations to join the congress, which the recipients either confirm or decline (in the case of Dr King). R. D. Laing was involved in the organisation of the congress and there are unsigned copies of his letters within the collection.
History
  • Joseph Berke was born in the US in the mid-twentieth century. He attended Columbia College of Columbia University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. In 1965 he moved to London, UK to work with the eminent psychiatrist R. D. Laing. He stayed at Kingsley Hall in Bow where he treated Mary Barnes for schizophrenia and later co-authored the publication 'Mary Barnes: two accounts of a journey through madness' with Barnes. Working with Laing, Berke was the principle organizer of the Dialectics of Liberation, and international conference held in London 15-30 July 1967. In 1970 he co-founded The Arbours Association with Morton Schatzman which established a therapeutic community for adults with emotional, psychological and social difficulties in Muswell Hill. In 1973 he founded the Arbours Crisis Centre, operating as it's Director until it's closure in 2010.
Name of creator(s)
  • Berke, Joseph
Access status
  • MIXED
Conditions governing reproduction
  • Copyright of Dr Joseph Berke (under review following Dr Berke passing away Jan 2021)
Records held elsewhere
  • Additional personal papers are held at the Wellcome Library. Their ref: PP/BER
Language
  • ENG
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
  • Papers