Austen Riggs Center

Education and training for mental health professionals is part of the lifeblood of the Austen Riggs Center and its Erikson Institute. We offer myriad opportunities for mental health professionals of all guilds and in spite of the necessary COVID-19 precautions Riggs needed to take to keep patients and staff safe, this spring we marked an important education milestone: our two social work interns–first-year Master's students at Smith College School for Social Work Frances Parrish and Cheryl Fromularo–successfully completed their field internships in person with us. Field internships are a hallmark of MSW education and while the pandemic necessitated many adjustments to more remote formats, Riggs is proud to have been able to offer a safe in-person internship experience at a time when few were available. 

This video series is taken from our Centennial Conference and features excerpts from many of the presentations – check back often or bookmark the Riggs Blog to see new videos.

“There is an excessive focus on the biomedical at the expense of the biopsychosocial. . . . there are false assumptions that genes equal disease, that patients have single disorders that respond to single evidence-based treatments, that pills are the best treatment that we have.” states Dr. Plakun.