Mary Barnes
Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness
In 1966, Mary Barnes was a schizophrenic with no hope of relief from her condition. Joseph H. Berke was a young doctor in rebellion against the restrictions of the American psychiatric profession. When Berke moved to England to work with the radical psychologist R.D. Laing, he met Mary, a patient at Laing's experimental therapeutic community at Kingsley Hall. This account of their different perspectives on Mary's illness & treatment is both a critique of conventional approaches to therapy & the story of a remarkable friendship.