The congress on the Dialectics of Liberation was an international congress organised in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

between 15 and 30 July 1967. It was organised by the American educationalist Joe Berke. The scope of the conference was to "demystify human violence in all its forms, and the social systems from which it emanates, and to explore new forms of action". A

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

, ''Ah, Sunflower'', directed by Robert Klinkert and

Iain Sinclair Iain Sinclair FRSL (born 11 June 1943) is a writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, recently within the influences of psychogeography. Biography Education Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. From 1956 to 1961, he was educate ...

, and featuring

R. D. Laing Ronald David Laing (7 October 1927 – 23 August 1989), usually cited as R. D. Laing, was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illnessin particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment o ...

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, he grew up in the Unite ...

and others, was filmed around the Dialectics of Liberation conference.

History

In 1965 R. D. Laing, and colleagues, came together as a community for themselves and people in a state of psychosis. As a result,

Kingsley Hall Kingsley Hall is a community centre, in Powis Road, Bromley-by-Bow in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, East End of London. It dates back to the work of Doris and Muriel Lester, who had a nursery school in nearby Bruce Road. Their brother, ...

became home to the

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 radical psychiatrist and psychoanalyst R. D. Laing along with fellow psychiatrists David Cooper, Joseph B ...

and one of the most radical experiments in psychiatry. In January 1967, International Times announced that "This summer, in July, the Institute of Phenomenological Studies will make the move. A congress will convene in London on the Dialectics of Liberation. The congress intends to examine and expose the system of societal and inter-personal influences that converge on us from birth. This means clearing the field of all preconceptions regarding who, what and where we are, as well as all manner of socially convenient academic conventions that are propped up by politics, ideology and false philosophical justifications. For we are taught, and coerced, to see things through a filter of politically arrived at and socially sanctioned lies. The entire world as we "know" it must be demystified." The organizing group consisted of four psychiatrists who were very much concerned with radical innovation in their own field - to the extent of counter-labelling their discipline as

anti-psychiatry Anti-psychiatry is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment is often more damaging than helpful to patients, highlighting controversies about psychiatry. Objections include the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis, the questionabl ...

. The four were Dr. R. D. Laing, Dr. David Cooper, Dr. Joseph Berke and Dr. Leon Redler.

2012 reenactment

An event was staged in February 2012 at

which used actors to speak the words of the original contributors to the 1967 event.Dialektikon 2012
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References

External links

The Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation (for the Demystification of Violence), Roundhouse, 15-30 July 1967

Dialectics 1967 Dialektikon 2012 - International Times, 4 May, 2012
Anti-psychiatry History of mental health in the United Kingdom {{mental-health-stub