Dr Joseph H. Berke

Dr. Joseph Berke, a visionary psychotherapist and author, reshaped the landscape of mental health care by championing a compassionate, non-medical approach to supporting individuals in profound distress. Trained at Columbia University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Berke’s journey led him to London in 1965, where he collaborated with existential psychiatrist R.D. Laing at Kingsley Hall, a groundbreaking therapeutic community. There, he guided individuals like Mary Barnes, a nurse grappling with schizophrenia, to find healing through creativity and connection, co-authoring Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness, a work translated into 13 languages and adapted into a celebrated stage play. 

In 1970, Berke co-founded the Arbours Housing Association, establishing a sanctuary for those in emotional turmoil, and later directed the Arbours Crisis Centre. He believed that distress, far from being a flaw to suppress, was a powerful call for understanding- a perspective that allowed people to unravel their suffering in safe, nurturing spaces. Berke’s approach, rooted in the sanctity of human relationships, saw healing as a process of breaking down to break through, enabling individuals to rediscover their place in the world. This philosophy underpins his enduring legacy, including the vision for the Akedia Community Wellbeing Centres, which seek to weave mental health support into the fabric of vibrant, inclusive communities.

Psychotherapeutic  Approach

Dr. Joseph Berke described his approach to psychotherapy with various descriptors, including Phenomenological Psychotherapy, Intensive Psychotherapy, Existentialist Psychoanalysis and Person, Issue and Context focused Psychotherapy. All revolving around the idea that there is a totality of human existence in this world which is very deeply connected to our relationship with ourselves and other people and how we all experience our own selves and others in this nexus of human existence and being in the world.

For Joe, this had political implications, for example his engagement with Radical Activism. He took this to the clinical field of Anti Psychiatry, the Counter Culture movement and the non medical model of human experience. That is how he found his way into the world and the thinking of Thomas Schatz, R. D. Laing and Melanie Klein - the main names in the intellectual field where he placed himself in terms of his clinical practice.

Joe’s approach was not focused on a person as a client or a patient. But rather he focused on a person as a therapist within him/herself.

In addition, a great concern for Joe - beyond the presenting symptoms of the client - is what happens inside the therapist and how the therapist’s internal equilibrium or lack of equilibrium plays itself out subconsciously into this nexus of a relationship with a client and how the client is actually resonating with those elements in the therapist’s presence. If the therapist is going through some kind of subconscious processes in the context of that relationship - let’s say, that he is feeling fear from the client’s madness, or he is feeling sadistic or punitive toward the client’s inability to get a hold of himself; or if the therapist feels some neurotic transfer, sexual desire to the client - all that is very strongly resonating and reverberating within the psyche of the patient and actually the  therapist may themselves not be aware that this is what they are doing. Therefore within that continuum of the therapists and client’s subconscious, it’s very important for the therapist - in order to create this healing experience - to be very routinely attuned to his internal processes, and to be very open and aware of what happens inside him/her, and it needs to be accounted for. This is a very important principle unique to Joe’s work.

Coming back to the client, who Joe viewed as a therapist within him/herself, the other key principle to Joe's work is that darkness is part of human presence. An idea that dates back to Carl Jung and many others in the psychotherapeutic community. But for Joe it was a very existentialist and a very real hands on experience. Meaning, usually therapists view patients as victims, as poor beings, as people who need to be saved from all the terrible stuff that they are going through. And for Joe it was important to emphasise that all that 'bad stuff' is being created by the client themselves. That said, it was very important to be able to view this from a non judgemental and very empathetic place, so that a client is not being accused of being bad, but rather is being helped to observe and contemplate on the badness that is in him, ravaging him from within. And the only way for this to happen is if a therapist is first keenly aware of his own madness, his own badness: the aggressive, sadistic, narcissistic, egotistical or paranoid components of his own personality. Because only when a therapist is keenly aware and very humbled by his own darkness and is in constant dialogue with his own eternal darkness, only then can he talk with the patient with full acceptance and empathy and really bring help the person to arrive at some kind of forgiveness and internal healing.

Dr. Joseph Berke’s legacy is a testament to the transformative power of human connection in mental health care. His work at Kingsley Hall, Arbours, and beyond demonstrated that even the deepest distress could be a pathway to renewal when met with empathy and space to heal. By rejecting the silencing tendencies of conventional psychiatry, Berke created environments where individuals could explore their struggles and rebuild their sense of self through relationships that honored their humanity. His vision lives on in the Akedia Community Wellbeing Centres framework, which aim to foster resilience and unity by integrating therapeutic support with community life. Berke’s belief that everyone deserves a sanctuary—temporal, spatial, and interpersonal—continues to inspire a future where mental health is not isolated but embraced as part of our shared human experience.