Eric M. Plakun, MD, to Step Down as Medical Director/CEO of the Austen Riggs Center at the End of 2024 after 47-Year Career

After six years as Medical Director/CEO of the Austen Riggs Center, Eric M. Plakun, MD, will step down on December 31.

“My fellow Board members and I are eternally grateful for Eric’s dedication to Riggs over the course of his career,” said Board Chair Lisa A. Raskin, PhD. “As the Medical Director and Chief Executive Officer, he guided us through the challenges of the Covid pandemic and upheld Riggs’ strong tradition of providing the highest quality residential psychiatric care. Eric’s vision of an Online Intensive Outpatient Program extended Riggs’ reach to college students and emerging adults. His achievements will benefit the entire Riggs community for the next century.”

Plakun started at Riggs in 1978 as a Fellow. He held posts including Director of Admissions and Associate Medical Director, and was appointed Medical Director/CEO in 2018.

“I came to Riggs as a Fellow and found a professional home that I loved from the start,” he said. “This project of treating people struggling with mental disorders as competent human beings has always spoken to my soul.”

His time as the head of Riggs included major initiatives. The 2019 Centennial Conference and Celebration drew leaders in behavioral healthcare from around the globe. Riggs’ Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy (EI) capitalized on the pandemic use of Zoom technologies with its virtual events and courses reaching nearly 7,000 professionals from 76 countries so far this year. In addition to the Online Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), which has enabled the Center to offer its treatment to a broadly diverse set of patients, Riggs is also now offering an Online IOP Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Training Certificate Program for doctoral level clinicians.

During Plakun’s tenure, the Center emphasized the importance of the alignment between psychoanalysis and mainstream psychiatry. A leading example of this is the EI’s Adult Psychoanalytic Training Program and Fellowship in Hospital Based Psychotherapy, which recently earned formal status as an approved institute of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA).

Plakun’s expertise and passion for mental health parity brought the Center’s advocacy work to a new level. He has long supported the drive for the full implementation of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, and served as plaintiffs’ expert on adult mental disorders in the landmark Wit v. United Behavioral Health federal class-action case. Through these endeavors, he helped position Riggs as a core player in the national parity discussion and has enabled the Center to increase insurance coverage for the residential and IOP treatment programs.

Plakun earned his medical degree from the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1972. An Internship in Medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Affiliated Hospitals followed, then a stint as a primary care doctor in rural Vermont. He completed a Residency in Psychiatry at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Mental Health Center, prior to coming to Riggs in 1978.

Over the course of his career, Plakun has distinguished himself on many fronts. He held leadership positions within the American Psychiatric Association (APA), including elected member of the APA Board of Trustees representing New England and Eastern Canada; founder and leader of the APA Psychotherapy Caucus; and member of the APA Assembly Executive Committee. He was honored in 2017 by the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA) for “championing psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy within American psychiatry and paving the way toward a return to a more individualized treatment model.” In 2003, he was presented with “The Outstanding Psychiatrist in Clinical Psychiatry” award by the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society.

His research and writing spans almost 50 years and features 100 reports, reviews, books, and other publications.

Entering the new year, Plakun intends to continue his Riggs affiliation. He will continue his role as a leading voice advocating for the value of psychotherapy and psychosocial treatments, including residential treatment and other intermediate levels of care that help patients who are struggling to achieve recovery as outpatients. The Center will be scheduling a celebration of his service and accomplishments in the near future.

The Board of Trustees is in the planning stages of a search for a new Medical Director/CEO. They have asked Edward R. Shapiro, MD, who served as the Medical Director/CEO from 1991 to 2011, to assume the role of Medical Director/CEO on January 1, 2025, and remain until the next Medical Director/CEO is in place.

The Austen Riggs Center is a vital therapeutic community, open psychiatric hospital, and institute for education, research, and advocacy in the field of mental health. Located in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, Riggs has been serving adults since its founding in 1919. In addition to its residential program, Riggs offers a fully online course of treatment for college students and other emerging adults in MA via its Online Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). Riggs’ mission is to promote resilience and self-direction in those with complex psychiatric problems—to help people take charge of their lives when other treatments have not worked. In addition to the clinical mission, the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center studies individuals in their social contexts through research, training, education, and conducts outreach programs in the local community and beyond. For more information, visit www.AustenRiggs.org.

Media Contact:

John Zollinger
Director of Communications
Austen Riggs Center
413.931.5816
john.zollinger@austenriggs.net