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Fellowship for Psychiatrists & Psychologists

Expand your expertise through the Adult Psychoanalytic Training Program and Fellowship in Hospital-Based Psychotherapy for psychiatrists and psychologists.

We offer an Adult Psychoanalytic Training Program and Fellowship in Hospital-Based Psychotherapy for both psychiatrists (post-residency) and psychologists (postdoctoral). Psychiatrists are also eligible to apply for a two-year Fellowship. Psychology Fellows are eligible for licensure after completion of the first 24 months of the postdoctoral Fellowship.
Our psychoanalytic training program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education (ACPEinc). This program is part of the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center. Our training includes a systems perspective, emphasizing individual development across the lifespan from within familial and cultural contexts. 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 skills and consulting skills.

The Fellowship Includes Training In:

  • Adult psychoanalysis
  • Psychoanalytic psychotherapy
  • A hospital-based systems perspective
  • Family therapy work
  • Psychological testing (for psychologists)
  • Psychodynamic psychopharmacology (for psychiatrists)
  • Work within a therapeutic community program, where learning is focused on the application of psychoanalytic understanding to group phenomena, and on the development of leadership skills and consulting skills

Fellows Benefit From:

  • Clinical supervision
  • Weekly didactic seminars by a distinguished faculty from Riggs, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and other prestigious institutions
  • Financial support for two years (300 hours) of personal analysis
  • Opportunities to engage in clinical research related to complex mental illness
  • Support for external education and conference attendance, and use of the superb Riggs on-site library and library services

Our Program Prepares Fellows To:

  • Work effectively with patients with complex psychiatric difficulties
  • Understand a psychodynamic systems perspective in a therapeutic community program
  • Teach and supervise others
  • Contribute to the body of knowledge about disturbed development and its treatment
Satisfactory completion of the first two years of the Austen Riggs Adult Psychoanalytic Training Program and Fellowship in Hospital-Based Psychotherapy meets postdoctoral supervised practice requirements for licensure in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for Psychology Fellows.
Fellows are evaluated annually by supervisors (written and oral report) and throughout the academic year by individual instructors (written report).

Prerequisites

  • Prerequisites for psychiatry applicants include completion of a psychiatric residency.
  • Psychology applicants must have a doctoral degree in psychology from an APA-accredited program and a year of clinical internship at an APA-accredited or APPIC-listed site.
  • In addition, three letters of recommendation and a personal statement are required.
Select applicants will be invited to Riggs for in-person interviews. The Austen Riggs Center provides an excellent and competitive salary and benefits package, including support for two years of personal psychoanalysis.
Our psychoanalytic training program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education (ACPEinc).
Fellowship Curriculum
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 theory and research, psychopathology, history of psychoanalysis, and group and family processes.
Individual Psychoanalytic 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 per case.
Team Meetings
As members of multidisciplinary teams, Fellows learn to integrate their work with the perspectives of other disciplines as they help organize their patients’ treatment.
Case Conference
Clinical case conferences are a central aspect of the psychoanalytic training experience at Riggs and take place twice a week. These two-hour meetings offer space for the clinical staff to integrate assessments and develop a psychodynamic understanding of unconscious processes, transference, countertransference paradigms, conflicts, and defenses. Further integration occurs in team and clinical staff meetings.
Group and Family Consultation
Family therapy work and group consultation are important elements of treatment at Riggs. Learning to consult to families, small groups, large groups, and organizations are skills acquired by Fellows, who work as co-therapists with the patient’s social worker and become consultants to one or more groups in the therapeutic community.
Additional Curriculum Elements
Fellows also meet regularly 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.

Application Process

Applications are accepted year-round for psychiatrists and are due by December 1 for psychologists.
Faculty
Our faculty is a robust group that includes experts and thought leaders in psychoanalytic theory and practice.
Adjunct Faculty
Barri Belnap, MD
Christine Burbank, MSW, LICSW
A. Jill Clemence, PhD
Steven Cooper, PhD
Darlene Bregman Ehrenberg, PhD
Melinda Gellman, PhD
Claudia M. Gold, MD
Jesse A. Goodman, MD
Jay Greenberg, PhD
Frank Lachmann, PhD
Lucy LaFarge, MD
Nancy McWilliams, PhD
Jack A. Miller, MD
John Miner, MD
David Olds, MD
Craig Piers, PhD
Ellen Rees, MD
Anne Rocheleau, PhD
Marie G. Rudden, MD
Hannah Wallerstein, PhD
Elizabeth F. Weinberg, MD
Lyn Yonack, LICSW
Joanne Yurman, PhD
Distinguished Faculty in the Erikson Institute
Senior Erikson Scholar
Senior Erikson Scholar Emeritus
Additional Information
We have established the following contact protocols regarding Due Process and Complaints pertaining to the Adult Psychoanalytic Training Program and Fellowship in Hospital-Based Psychotherapy.
Due Process
A Due Process procedure is available to all Fellows from the director of training. For additional information on the policy or the Fellowship, contact director of training Daniel Knauss, PhD, at daniel.knauss@austenriggs.net or 413.931.5304.
Complaints
Formal complaints about the professional conduct of Fellows or Full Faculty of the Erikson Institute may be made by writing or calling: Jane G. Tillman, PhD, ABPP, Evelyn Stefansson Nef Director of the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center, 25 Main Street Stockbridge, MA 01262 or 413.931.5213.

Contact Us for More

If you have questions or would like additional information about the Fellowship Program, please contact the Director of Training.