Many individuals struggling with psychiatric problems can find themselves caught up in treatments that are at an impasse, characterized by chronic crisis management and interrupted by frequent short-term hospitalizations. The goal of treatment at the Austen Riggs Center is to help individuals in such a struggle take charge of their lives more fully so that they may return to more productive treatments and more fulfilling engagement in the outside world.
Established in 1919, Riggs is known for its internationally-recognized tradition of providing intensive psychodynamic psychotherapy in a voluntary, open, and
non-coercive community. Patients not helped in other settings can often benefit from deeper, more thorough psychodynamic evaluation and treatment. Riggs offers a continuum of inpatient and residential programs and services within a core treatment framework that remains consistent throughout the patient’s stay.
Riggs’ unique treatment approach is centered around a therapeutic community based on the notion of examined living. The careful exploration of difficult life experiences has the best chance of success if patients are invited to share their strengths with each other and the staff in a serious partnership of mutual problem solving and social learning.
The therapeutic community is structured as a series of interconnected patient/staff groups and programs, ranging from community meetings, social support groups and symptom-focused groups to patient-government structures, Community Center activities and a Work Program. It is supported by interpersonally-focused nursing and an innovative fine arts program.
This intensive and unusual clinical program, with a long history of successful treatments, has generated a great deal of research and teaching over the years. In 1994, these activities were integrated and developed more fully as Riggs' Erikson Institute for Education and Research.
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