Joe Berke played a crucial role in Mary Barnes’s creative journey. It was he who first encouraged her to express herself creatively by suggesting that she scribble on the walls of Kingsley Hall. When he met her, she was making little progress towards recovery. After experiencing a psychotic breakdown in her 40s, and aware of RD Laing’s progressive ideas about mental health and the family, she sought treatment from him. She was the first to move into Kingsley Hall in 1965. She underwent regression and spent much time on the floor, curled into a foetal position, in a shroud-like box. She often refused to eat, drink or wash and sometimes smeared herself in excrement.

At that time, Joe travelled from the US, inspired to work with Laing. He was assigned to work with Mary at Kingsley Hall and they developed an intense therapeutic relationship. Their interactions included play fighting and occasional physical violence. Joe bathed and fed Mary from a bottle as if she were an infant. They discussed religion and spirituality. Mary referred to Joe as Big Bear. Their relationship may now seem unorthodox but at the time Kingsley Hall was a place of experimentation and a critical response to the medical model of psychiatry. Their experience together is documented in their jointly authored text: Mary Barnes- two accounts of a journey through madness (1971). The text has been translated into more than 10 languages and was adapted into an acclaimed play- Mary Barnes, by David Edgar in 1978.

Mary recovered from her mental health crisis and went on to assist Joe in his therapeutic work in London. They became close friends and Joe was custodian for a significant collection of her artwork, now part of the Wellcome Collection. Mary moved to Scotland in the 1980s where she hoped to establish a residential community for those in mental distress, and she continued to paint and write poetry. She exhibited artwork internationally and lectured on the importance of creativity to her own and others’ mental health. Joe and his wife Shree attended Mary’s funeral at the Chapel Royal, Falkland Palace, Fife in 2001. She is buried in Falkland Cemetery. Joe continued to promote Mary’s life and work after her death. He gave talks alongside exhibitions of her work in Nottingham (Art in the Asylum, Djanogly Gallery, 2013) and London (Boo Bah, Nunnery Gallery, 2015), and advocated to make a feature film about her life.