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The Riggs Blog
The Riggs Blog is a mix of news about clinical work, research and educational activities from the Austen Riggs Center, as well as a source for information beyond our walls that we find interesting and thought-provoking. Senior clinical experts, researchers, and editors review all clinical content on this blog before it is published.
At a certain juncture in their training, some medical students and psychiatric residents confront a profound question: What is the best intervention to treat patients suffering with mental health problems—Is it medication? Is it psychotherapy? Is it both?
Austen Riggs Center Medical Director/CEO Eric M. Plakun, MD, talks about what psychotherapy can expect after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Austen Riggs Center Research Psychologist Katie Lewis, PhD, provides an update on her Loneliness and Social Distancing Research Study.
The theme of this fourth and final 4x4@4:00 “Talking It Through” session was disruption/re-thinking. The number of disruptions mentioned was striking, and many of them require us to re-think things we have “taken for granted.”
The Austen Riggs Center is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2020 Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media: Hannah Dreier, for her Washington Post piece “Trust and Consequences”
A major theme of this third session of the 4x4@4:00 “Talking It Through” series was “Hold on to your hats!” In response to the COVID-19 crisis, mental health professionals have gone through a number of phases in rapid succession: initial panic and confusion, surprisingly quick adaptation, learning how to organize the work, then a feeling of “Enough now,” then anxious anticipation of how the re-opening will go. There are so many unknowns on the horizon that it leads, on the one hand, to a longing for certainty, even though nobody has that, and on the other, to an even greater need to be adaptive. “Flexibility” was the watchword, and “roller coaster” was the metaphor.
The killing of George Floyd by members of the Minneapolis Police Department is the latest in a long history of attacks on African Americans. It is an American tragedy that racism, hate, and violence toward people of color are so deeply embedded in our culture and in our country’s history. This must stop. And the systems and institutions that allow for these acts of violence to continue must be dismantled or fundamentally changed. This is no small task, but we each have a role to play.
In March, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency for the Commonwealth in response to the growing COVID-19 pandemic. The order was for all non-essential businesses to close, for residents to limit unnecessary travel, and recommendations were given about social distancing. Designated as an essential behavioral healthcare facility, the Austen Riggs Center is adhering to the state guidelines. Riggs stopped taking new admissions, began using video conferencing for some group and individual meetings, restricted visitors from coming on campus, and instructed patients that they could no longer travel back and forth from the outside community to the Riggs campus.
A prominent theme in the second 4x4@4:00 “Talking It Through” conversation–noted by Colleen Holmes, President/CEO of 18 Degrees–was fragility.” Anxiety and depression associated with the pandemic meet the fragility of families already suffering chronic stress, the fragility of marginal youth tenuously tethered to sources of help, and the fragility of children trying to hold on to hard-won developmental achievements. In many cases, this fragility was already there–a pre-existing condition–but now it is exposed for all to see.
The COVID-19 pandemic is producing unprecedented upheaval in our lives. First there’s the public health crisis, the virus itself, and the losses we were experiencing related to that. And there’s also an economic disaster unfolding. Both of these have serious consequences for mental health.
For nearly two months the COVID-19 pandemic has affected how we relate to each other. Work life and social life have changed. We are farther apart and have to find new ways to be together. In that process, emotional challenges and stresses face everyone, and take their toll on the more vulnerable. The 4X4@4:00 “Talking It Through” series creates an online forum on select Monday afternoons for panelists and members of the general public to explore the psychological impact of what we’re going through and to make new connections, both with each other and in our understanding of these challenges.
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