Each spring, a group of Austen Riggs Center patients and actors from the local community stage a Shakespearian production in the intimate Riggs Theatre located at 37 Main Street in Stockbridge on the second floor. 

This year’s production, William Shakespeare’s 

, will be performed nightly at 7:30 p.m. from Wednesday, May 24 through Sunday, May 28.

, Riggs Theatre 37 provides an opportunity for patients to explore some of their strengths through involvement in twice-yearly productions (spring and fall). The immersive ten-week process includes reading scripts, selecting a play, working through rehearsals, and staging several performances for the general public.

 Nightly, Tuesday, May 24 through Sunday, May 28

 $20/general public; $10/students and seniors

For a complete listing of upcoming events at the Austen Riggs Center, visit: 

Special Events

Riggs Theatre 37 Presents William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

$20/general public; $10/students and seniors

nightly  at 7:30 p.m. (Eastern) from May 24 to 28.

First Stockbridge Congress on Child Analysis (1950)

“First Stockbridge Congress on Child Analysis”, Austen Riggs Foundation, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, April 23-24, 1950

This is an in-person event at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, 11 East 52nd Street New York, NY 10022

After the “Anschluss,” the annexation of Austria into National Socialist Germany, numerous members and candidates of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung, WPV) were affected by increased oppression, racialized attacks and antisemitic legislation. With the commitment and support of the international psychoanalytic community, all threatened Viennese psychoanalysts and candidates left Vienna by spring 1939. The majority emigrated to the US, with a particularly large contingent coming to New York. In contrast to Europe, where the science of the unconscious met with resistance at the universities, psychoanalysis was well-established in the US by the 1930s. For some Viennese emigrants, American exile provided opportunities that would have remained closed to them elsewhere. At the New York Psychoanalytic Society, which was the most influential and largest psychoanalytic association in the US, Viennese emigrants were the majority of members by the end of the war. Former WPV members held important positions in the Training Committee, on the Board of Directors and in the outpatient clinic, and only a few returned to Austria after the end of the war.

The panel discussion will discuss the historical events and biographies of Viennese émigré analysts and will consider their influence on psychoanalysis in the decades to follow. The event will take place in the context of the exhibition 

“Organized Escape. Psychoanalysts in Exile,”

 originally from the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna and opening at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA, which will run from June 2nd-October 15th, 2023.

, neuro-psychiatrist, artist and poet who lives and works in New York.

, historian and member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Curator of the A.A. Brill Library’s Archives and Special Collections, a member of the Board of the Sigmund Freud Archives, and chair of the IPA Committee on the History of Psychoanalysis.

Evelyn Stefansson Nef Director of the Erikson Institute for Education and Research of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA.

From Vienna to the US: Expulsion and Renaissance of Psychoanalysis

A panel discussion about the historical events and biographies of Viennese émigré analysts and will consider their influence on psychoanalysis in the decades to follow.

Creativity and the Erotic Dimensions of the Analytic Field

FRIDAY NIGHT GUEST LECTURE SERIES 2023-24

In this presentation, Dr. Dianne Elise will be making use of a Winnicottian formulation of the analytic field to highlight the often unspoken, implicit erotic dimensions of our work. She puts forth the premise that psychoanalysis is an erotic project and proposes that a creative aesthetic can provide a clinical container for the engagement and exploration of erotic life within the analytic field of each treatment.

View the rest of the 2023-24 Friday Night Guest Lectures in the series.

Educational Events

Creativity and the Erotic Dimensions of the Analytic Field 

Free, virtual Friday Night Guest Lecture with Dianne Elise, PhD. 

Save The Date – Registration & CEU Information Coming Soon

Presented by: Berkshire Medical Center, Austen Riggs Center, The Brien Center, Berkshire Coalition for Suicide Prevention, Berkshire NAMI

Berkshire County Suicide Prevention Conference: Suicide Prevention Across the Lifespan

Austen Riggs Center 2023 Virtual Fall Conference for Psychiatric Care Providers, Psychotherapists, and Social Scientists

Despite our burgeoning neuroscientific knowledge, psychiatric outcomes are not significantly better than they were three decades ago. After decades of hopeful enthusiasm, the limits of a biomedically-reductionist approach to problems of mental health are increasingly clear. A renewed interest in integrating biomedical and psychosocial perspectives to optimize mental health outcomes is gaining momentum, whether in a focus on patient-centeredness, the development of collaborative care models, increasing attention to the social determinants of mental health, or efforts to re-integrate psychodynamic with medical approaches.

This conference will explore areas where bio and psycho and social intersect and will examine the utility of interdisciplinary engagement. This conference will ask the question of what medications are, beyond simple biological treatments. Foci will include the limits of reductionist approaches, sociological perspectives on contemporary psychiatric care, psychodynamic aspects of health equity, the psychotherapeutic value of exploring the psychological functions of medications, and the value, in pharmacotherapy, of integrating focused psychodynamic techniques. Intended outcomes are that conference participants should have increased knowledge and skills for working at the boundaries between disciplines, that psychiatric prescribers should be better equipped to address the meaning dimension in pharmacotherapy, and that psychotherapists should enhance their skills in exploring medications as important psychological phenomena.

(see registration page for specific guild information) 

10:00-10:30 a.m.	David Mintz, MD: Conference Opening 

10:30-11:20 a.m.	Tanya Luhrmann, PhD: “Of Two Minds, 30 Years Later” 

11:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m.	Awais Aftab, MD: “Fault Lines in Biopsychosocial Psychiatry: Integrative	Aspirations and the Path Forward”

1:30-2:20 p.m.	Nancy McWilliams, PhD, ABPP: “Diagnosis and its Discontents” 

3:00-3:50 p.m.	Kathryn T. Hall, PhD: “Meaning Effects and Health Equity” 

4:00-4:50 p.m.	Kyle Shepard, DO: “Meaning & Medication: The Evidence Base” 

10:00-10:10 a.m.	Conference Opening–Day 2 

Psychodynamic Technique in Pharmacotherapy

10:10-11:00 a.m.	David Mintz, MD: “Psychodynamic Psychopharmacology” 

11:10 a.m.-12:00 p.m.	Haroula Konstantinidou, MD , MRCPsych

: “Challenges of Integrating Pharmacotherapy and Psychodynamics”

12:10-12:30 p.m.	Morning Panel Discussion 

Pharmacotherapy as a Psychotherapeutic Focus

1:15-2:05 p.m.	Alicia Powell, MD: “The Medication Life” 

2:15-3:05 p.m.	Adele Tutter, MD: “Medication as Object” 

3:15-3:35 p.m.	Afternoon Panel Discussion 

3:35-4:20 p.m.	Conference Panel Discussion and Closing (all presenters & audience) 

Conferences

Losing our Mind and Finding It:  Re-Integrating Meaning in a Neurobiologically-Focused Era

Austen Riggs Center 2023 Virtual Fall Conference for Psychiatric Care Providers, Psychotherapists, and Social Scientists. 11 CE/CME credits available. 

Psychoanalysis and Psychedelics: A Fortuitous Alliance

This event highlights the subjective effects of certain psychedelics, including their potential benefits and risks, and describes the clinical protocol of the FDA-approved research trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD along with outcomes. Aspects of the clinical interface of psychedelic-assisted therapy and psychoanalytically-oriented treatment, including reconceptualization of the therapeutic alliance and frame, transference and countertransference issues, referral considerations, and contraindications to PAT will be discussed.

View the rest of the 2023-24 Friday Night Guest Lectures in the series. 

Free, virtual Friday Night Guest Lecture with Karen Peoples, PhD.

In this presentation, Sebastian Leikert describes the therapeutic path with a young male adolescent patient suffering from emotional instability, suicidality, and self-injury. Establishing therapeutic contact with his perception of disorganized bodily states led to relief from suicidal pressure. Working through these bodily sensations in a resonant presence of the therapist who privileges perception over interpretation in these episodes, played an important role in alleviating the intense fear of annihilation and helped him overcome states of autoaggression leading to self-injury in the past. Leikert will describe the inner dynamics and structure of the bodily unconscious and the ways in which somatic narration and verbal interpretation can be brought into a fruitful relationship.

Working with the Bodily Unconscious: Somatic Narration as a Method to Anchor the Working-Through in the Body-Self

Free, virtual Friday Night Guest Lecture with Sebastian Leikert. 

The Tao of K-drama: Reflections on Displacement, Trauma, and Recovery

In this presentation, Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, HON AIA, DLFAPA, will focus on South Korean television series known as “K-drama,” a genre that tells stories in 16-20 one-hour episodes. The stories focus on individuals in crisis, who resolve their issues in several steps that lead to a deeper engagement with their friends and family. This “team” then is able to tackle larger problems of the society. This optimistic drama form offers insight, drawn from the syncretic philosophical and religious traditions of Korea, into the recovery of individuals and groups, from an array of traumas and social upheavals. Implications for cross-cultural understanding and considerations for US mental health systems will be discussed.

Free, virtual Friday Night Guest Lecture with Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, HON AIA, DLFAPA.

Climate Emergency, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics with Donna Orange, PhD

Donna Orange, PhD, PsyD, notes that despite a tendency to avoid the warnings, times of crisis summon clinicians to emerge from comfortable consulting rooms. Daily engaged with human suffering, they now face the inextricably bound together crises of global warming and massive social injustices. Considering historical and emotional causes of climate unconsciousness and of compulsive consumerism, we argue that only a radical ethics of responsibility to be “my other’s keeper” will truly wake us up to climate change and bring psychoanalysts to actively take on responsibilities. Linking climate justice to radical ethics by way of psychoanalysis, we here consider relevant aspects of psychoanalytic expertise, referring to work on trauma, mourning, and the transformation of trouble into purpose.

Climate Emergency, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics

Free, virtual Friday Night Guest Lecture with Donna Orange, PhD, PsyD. 

The Vanishing of Culture in Psychoanalysis: History and New Directions with Chris Christian, PhD

In this presentation, after revisiting the decline of cultural psychoanalysis in the United States, Chris Christian, PhD, will discuss the treatment of a patient presenting with a culture bound syndrome known as ataque de nervios. The treatment serves as a challenge to biases within psychoanalysis and about psychoanalysis. The presentation will conclude by arguing for a new paradigm of cultural theorizing.

The Vanishing of Culture in Psychoanalysis: History and New Directions

Free, virtual Friday Night Guest Lecture (Yasmin Roberts Memorial Lecture) with Chris Christian, PhD. 

Explore a wide range of psychotherapy conferences, lectures, workshops, and educational events with Riggs clinicians, as well as online CE/CME courses. 

Therapy Conferences & Educational Events | Austen Riggs Center

For answers to any questions about events, conferences, or CME courses, please feel free to contact us.

In addition to wide ranges of published articles, interviews, and other materials featuring the work of Riggs clinicians, our Resource Center houses video excerpts and select full presentations from past academic conferences and educational events.

An important part of the Erikson Institute's educational mission is providing online continuing education and continuing medical education courses with an emphasis on psychodynamic psychotherapy. Certificates and CE/CME credits are availabile for those with an MD, PhD, or PsyD, and for social workers.

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From Vienna to the US: Expulsion and Renaissance of Psychoanalysis

Past Presentations

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For answers to any questions about events, conferences, or CME courses, please feel free to contact us.

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