The Educational Experience

In addition to carrying out intensive individual psychotherapy, group consultation, family treatment, and therapeutic community work, the Fellows participate in case conferences and didactic seminars addressing psychopathology, clinical theory and technique, developmental research, psychosis, group and family process, and community psychology. Fellows also meet frequently as a group with the Medical Director to discuss clinical and systems issues. Lectures by internationally respected clinicians and theoreticians are held regularly. Fellows may also choose elective training in psychodynamic research and organizational consultation. Through the Center’s tuition-reimbursed plan, they may also take courses at, or become candidates of, the Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute.

Individual Psychotherapy and Clinical Assessment
Fellows engage in intensive and often long-term, four-times-weekly psychotherapy with patients who have been labeled “treatment-resistant.” Fellows are assigned three psychotherapy patients, with an option for a fourth, and receive weekly clinical supervision with an experienced psychotherapist.

Team Meetings
In multidisciplinary teams, Fellows learn to integrate their work with the perspectives of other disciplines as they help organize their patients’ treatment.

Case Conference
Case conferences are a central aspect of the training experience at Riggs. The clinical staff meets regularly to discuss and integrate the developmental, historical, neurobiological, familial, and social aspects of the patient’s life under a guiding psychodynamic formulation. Fellows learn the intricacies of transference and countertransference, deepen their theoretical understanding of psychodynamic theory, and develop their psychotherapy skills. Further integration occurs in team and clinical staff meetings.

Group and Family Consultation
Family therapy is an important element of treatment at Riggs. Learning to consult to families, small groups, large groups and organizations are skills acquired by Fellows as they work as co-therapists with the patient’s social worker and become consultants to one or more groups in the therapeutic community.