Activities Staff

Administrative Staff

Finance

Human Resources

Information Technology (IT)

Development

Communications

Admissions Staff

Clinical Social Workers

Erikson Institute Distinguished Faculty

Erikson Institute Staff

Faculty

Leadership

Nursing Staff

Online Intensive Outpatient Program

Therapeutic Community Staff

Therapy Staff

Fellows

Psychology

MD from Northwestern University Medical School

Psychiatric residency at Strong Memorial Hospital at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

Fellowship and Advanced Fellowship in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the Austen Riggs Center

James L. Sacksteder, MD, is a distinguished faculty member in the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center. 

Dr. Sacksteder served as the Medical Director/CEO at the Austen Riggs Center. He was also a lecturer at Smith College School of Social Work for over twenty years. A board-certified psychiatrist, he has been a dedicated clinician whose commitment to the Austen Riggs Center spans nearly four decades.

Dr. Sacksteder has written over twenty articles and book chapters on the treatment of anorexia nervosa, long-term psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy of severely disturbed patients, narcissism, object relations theory, and ego psychology. He is co-editor of 

 with Daniel P. Schwartz, MD, and Yoshiharu Akabane, MD: (International University Press, 1987).

James. L. Sacksteder, MD

Distinguished Faculty in the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy  

Liz Sample is the social work administrative assistant at the Austen Riggs Center.

Sample has a decade of experience in working with at-risk communities, serving in support and outreach with adolescents, seniors, HIV communities of color, and those impacted by addiction and mental health challenges.

Ms. Sample (lizsample.com) shows her photography at The Spencertown Arts Center and at LabSpace in Columbia County, NY.

Photography, film studies, medieval history, and Symbolist art

Liz Sample

Social Work Administrative Assistant

PsyD in clinical psychology from Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at Yeshiva University

Hannah Schmitt, PsyD, is a postdoctoral Fellow in psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalytic studies who provides psychotherapy and psychological testing at the Austen Riggs Center.

Before starting at Riggs, she trained in university, outpatient community health, and inpatient hospital settings. Her dissertation used a dynamic systems lens to compare rupture and repair in the therapeutic alliance with body movement synchrony during therapy sessions. Her clinical interests include enactive cognition, gender and sexuality, and somatic and contemplative traditions as they relate to psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Hannah Schmitt, PsyD

Fellow in Psychology

MD from the University of Maryland Medical School

Psychiatric Residency and Geriatric Psychiatry fellowship training at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC)

Erin Seery, MD, is a psychiatrist in the 

 for College Students and Emerging Adults in Massachusetts at the Austen Riggs Center. Dr. Seery serves as the psychiatry consultant within the IOP, but also intermittently provides psychotherapy and group therapy. She is a board-certified psychiatrist with active medical licenses in Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina. She is committed to understanding patients across the lifespan and the unique challenges at particular developmental timepoints. She completed general psychiatry residency and a geriatric psychiatry fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina, and then pursued a 4-year advanced psychoanalytic fellowship at the Austen Riggs Center residential program where she worked with emerging adults and those in other life stages in intensive psychodynamic individual psychotherapy, group and family therapy modalities and in concert with psychiatric prescribing.

Following her psychoanalytic fellowship, Dr. Seery joined the faculty at the Medical University of South Carolina. She practices in a variety of settings from the adult and child psychiatric emergency rooms to supervising the outpatient senior resident clinic.She serves as the Associate Program Director and Associate Psychotherapy Director of the general psychiatry residency program. She has received numerous awards for her teaching of psychiatry trainees.

Dr. Seery is also involved in advocacy, recently named a Trustee with the American Academy of Psychodynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (AAPDPP) (2023-2026) and will be the incoming president of the South Carolina Psychiatric Association (2024-2025). She writes and presents on topics of Personality Based prescribing, psychotherapeutic interventions in acute settings, the use of countertransference in inpatient settings, and psychodynamic considerations of brain stimulation.

American Academy of Psychodynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (AAPDPP) Trustee (2023-2026)

South Carolina Psychiatric Association President (2024-2025)

American Psychiatric Association (APA), Psychotherapy Caucus

South Carolina Psychiatric Association, Executive Council - Membership Chair

American Academy of Psychodynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis

Erin Seery, MD

Online IOP Psychiatrist

Melanie Seserman, RDN, is the registered dietician at the Austen Riggs Center.

Melanie Seserman, RDN

Registered Dietician

BA in Literaturefrom Westfield State University

Jodi Shafiroff is the director of development and alumni relations at the Austen Riggs Center.

Ms. Shafiroff has worked for nonprofits for more than 20 years, most recently as executive director of the Becket Athenaeum. Her previous experience includes connecting startup nonprofits to the foundations most likely to give them funding, donor cultivation and management, as well as programming direction and teaching.

Ms. Shafiroff volunteers as a development consultant for several Western Massachusetts nonprofits.

Jodi Shafiroff

Director of Development and Alumni Relations

MA in anthropology from Stanford University

A board-certified psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, family researcher, and organizational consultant, Edward R. Shapiro, MD, is the Medical Director/CEO of the Austen Riggs Center effective January 1, 2025. Dr. Shapiro was a distinguished faculty member in the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center. He is the former Medical Director/CEO of the Center (1991-2011).

An organizational consultant for over thirty-five years, Dr. Shapiro has consulted with hospitals, mental health clinics, law firms, and family businesses. He has published over fifty articles and book chapters on human and organizational development, family functioning, and personality disorders, presenting papers in this country and abroad. He is the author of 

Finding a Place to Stand: Developing Self-Reflective Institutions, Leaders and Citizens

 (Phoenix, 2020). His book (with A. W. Carr), 

Lost in Familiar Places: Creating New Connections between the Individual and Society

, was published by Yale University Press (1991) as was his edited book, 

The Inner World in the Outer World: Psychoanalytic Perspectives

For a list (and downloadable copies) of Dr. Shapiro's publications, see: 

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Shapiro2/contributions

Professional Affiliations / Organizational Memberships

Founding member of the Psychoanalytic Society and Institute of the Berkshires

Advisory board member of Partners Confronting Collective Atrocities

Board member of the International Dialogue Initiative

Principal of the Boswell Group of New York

Clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine

Certification in Psychoanalysis from the American Psychoanalytic Association

Fellow of the A.K. Rice Institute and the American College of Psychoanalysis

Felix and Helene Deutsch Scientific Award from the Boston Psychoanalytic Society

Research Prize from the Society for Family Therapy and Research

Philip Isenberg Teaching Award from McLean Hospital

Named 2007 “Outstanding Psychiatrist for Advancement of the Profession” by the Massachusetts Psychiatric Association

Named “Top Doctor” by U.S. News & World Report since 2011

Edward R. Shapiro, MD

Medical Director/CEO

BA in history and religious studies from Brown University

Post-baccalaureate in pre-medical studies at Columbia University

DO from New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine

Psychiatry residency at the Institute of Living / Hartford Hospital

Fellowship in hospital-based psychotherapy and psychoanalytic studies at the Austen Riggs Center

Kyle Shepard, DO, is a staff psychiatrist at the Austen Riggs Center. In addition, he coordinates the Grand Rounds at Austen Riggs.

Before starting at the Austen Riggs Center he worked as an inpatient attending physician at the Institute of Living where he had the pleasure of teaching medical students, psychiatry residents, and psychology trainees.

Professional Affiliations/Organizational Memberships

Board Certified in Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN)

Kyle Shepard, DO

Staff Psychiatrist

Cynthia Sinopoli, RN, is a staff nurse at the Austen Riggs Center.

Staff Nurse

Kevin Smith is the Network Systems Engineer at the Austen Riggs Center.

Microsoft MCITP: Enterprise Administrator

Network Systems Engineer

Jessica St. John, RN, is the Medical Office & Infection Control Nurse at the Austen Riggs Center.

Jessica St. John, RN

Medical Office & Infection Control Nurse

Brenda St. Pierre serves in the Therapeutic Community Program as the centerwide community coordinator and as IRP-G and IRP-N program manager.

Brenda St. Pierre

Centerwide Community Coordinator/IRP-G and IRP-N Program Manager

Meet the Austen Riggs staff of therapists, nurses, administrators, and other healthcare professionals who work as a team on behalf of our patients. 

Staff Directory of Therapists and Teams | Austen Riggs

For more information on our residential treatment programs, or answers to any questions, please feel free to contact us. 

Meet Our Team

James L. Sacksteder, MD

Liz Sample

Hannah Schmitt, PsyD

Erin Seery, MD

Melanie Seserman, RDN

Jodi Shafiroff

Edward R. Shapiro, MD

Kyle Shepard, DO

Cynthia Sinopoli, RN

Kevin Smith

Jessica St. John, RN

Brenda St. Pierre

Contact Us for More

For more information on our residential treatment programs, or answers to any questions, please feel free to contact us.

© 2025 The Austen Riggs Center

Privacy Policy

Follow us: