Overview
- Updated On:
- June 5, 2023
Description
About the Austen Riggs Center
Located in Stockbridge, MA, with a national referral base, the Austen Riggs Center is an open and voluntary hospital-based continuum of care for adults (18+) with complex psychiatric problems. We offer a range of interventions within an integrated psychodynamic framework. An emphasis is placed on patient authority and responsibility while examining the meaning behind behaviors and how behaviors impact relationships. We treat the individual, not just the diagnosis. Patients come to us with multiple diagnoses, but we understand that these labels do not necessarily capture the essence of their struggles or strengths. In addition, through our Remote Access Intensive Outpatient Program we offer online treatment to emerging adults (18-26) in Massachusetts or New York.
Treatment at the Austen Riggs Center
Patients in the residential program have individual, psychodynamic psychotherapy sessions four times a week (with the exception of holidays, vacations, or illnesses) with a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist along with support and counseling from an interdisciplinary team that follows each patient from admission to discharge. The team includes a therapist, psychopharmacologist, substance use counselor, clinical social worker, nursing care coordinator, a therapeutic community staff member, and others. Patients are admitted to an intensive evaluation and treatment period that is six weeks in duration (this is our minimum length of stay). Most patients stay on in our continuum of residential, step-down, and day-treatment services. The Remote Access Intensive Outpatient Program is designed with a flexible schedule to meet the demands of academic life. The three-day-a-week IOP offers three hours of groups daily; individual psychotherapy with doctoral-level therapists; medication management and consultation; and family therapy.
Education, Research, and Advocacy
The Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center is a leading provider of psychoanalytic education and clinical training as well as psychoanalytic research and supports advocacy for critical issues related to psychiatric care. EI educational opportunities include an Adult Psychoanalytic Training Program and Fellowship in Hospital-Based Psychotherapy for both psychiatrists and psychologists (www.austenriggs.org/Fellowship). Fellows learn to work with disturbances in patients’ interpersonal and treatment contexts that reflect and illuminate patients’ intrapsychic struggles, fostering a more integrative approach while developing leadership and consultative skills. In research, our clinicians and scholars conduct numerous studies that further knowledge in psychiatric care. Areas of specialization include suicide prevention, psychiatric testing, post-traumatic stress disorder, and collaborative care. Our advocacy and outreach initiatives range from supporting local community partnerships to work at the national level promoting equitable access to care, implementation of the mental health parity law, and reduction of health disparities.
For more information, please visit Austen Riggs Center
