Online IOP for College Students and Emerging Adults in MA
The Riggs Difference: Where Understanding Leads to Recovery
Our open setting is what makes our treatment approach different: You are free to engage with other patients and staff in a therapeutic community to find meaning in your lived experience.
A Residential Mental Health Facility for People, Not Just Symptoms
At the Austen Riggs Center, we offer something rare: an open, voluntary psychiatric treatmentcommunity where your voice matters. As one of the few long-term mental health facilities in the country, Riggs focuses on lasting transformation, not just symptom relief. For over a century, we’ve treated people—not diagnoses. Whether you’re a patient searching for something deeper than symptom management, or a clinician seeking a uniquely therapeutic setting for your client, Riggs is different by design.
If you are looking for more than symptom management or are a clinician seeking a uniquely therapeutic setting for your client, Riggs stands apart by design. Here, in our open residential setting, our patients are not confined to locked wards or managed with privilege systems. You’re not a passive recipient of care, but an active participant in your own recovery, supported by a community of peers and professionals who believe change begins with understanding—not control.
Explore the Riggs Difference
Watch Our Video
Riggs Medical Director/CEO Ed Shapiro, MD, speaks about some of the distinguishing characteristics of Riggs treatment along with what kind of individuals might find a successful path to recovery here.
Understanding Treatment at the Austen Riggs Center
What Makes Riggs Different?
Riggs is not a locked facility. Our campus in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts is open and walkable. Patients come voluntarily and stay because they choose to engage in meaningful work on themselves. The structure is individualized and not restrictive, allowing for personal accountability and real-world decision-making.
Each patient meets four times a week with a doctoral-level therapist for individual psychodynamic psychotherapy. While we do not follow manualized protocols such as DBT therapy, our psychodynamic approach encourages deeper insight than many inpatient mental rehab programs. This high level of one-on-one therapy helps uncover the deeper and sometimes unconscious issues behind persistent patterns, emotions, and behaviors—often things that aren’t addressed in short-term care or medication-only approaches.
A Therapeutic Community That Supports Growth
Riggs is more than a treatment program—it’s a community. In everyday moments—meals, meetings, conversations—you’ll discover how your patterns play out with others. These real-time experiences are part of the work, offering new ways to understand and change how you relate to yourself and those around you.
Personalized and Whole-Person Care
Treatment at Riggs is not one-size-fits-all. Your treatment plan is developed with you and an interdisciplinary treatment team that follows you from admission to discharge, allowing you to be seen, have your voice heard, and take ownership of your treatment. Understanding your full context—not just your symptoms—is our goal. Learn what to expect during treatment at Riggs.
Understanding Treatment at Riggs
Medical Director/CEO Ed Shapiro, MD, outlines the developmental roots of distress and Riggs’ therapeutic stance of empathy and accountability that can help individuals examine and shift longstanding patterns while building agency, trust, and resilience.
A Place to Understand, Not Just Stabilize
Riggs is often the right choice for people who:
- Have been in and out of hospitals or short-term programs without lasting progress
- Feel stuck despite trying therapy, medication, or other treatments
- Struggle with identity, mood, relationships, anxiety, depression, or a sense of direction
- Are seeking time and space to explore what’s behind their difficulties
Many patients come to Riggs after trying multiple depression treatment centers or anxiety treatment centers without lasting success. Our model is ideal for those seeking a psychiatric residential treatment program that empowers deep insight and sustainable change.
Disorders We Treat
Our approach helps you better understand yourself and your relationships. In doing so, you can then find your own path to recovery from many types of mental health disorders.
*Although we don’t offer treatment to people whose substance use disorder (SUD) is active or primary, many of those struggling with mental disorders have co-occurring SUDs.
Support for Families
Families can play a key role in treatment. With patients’ authorization, we offer family work, ongoing consultation, and support to help loved ones understand the process and work through their own experiences. Active family engagement can be an important part of a person’s treatment.
Our Treatment Works: Lasting Change and Symptom Relief
There is a strong evidence base to support our approach to treatment and our results and former patient stories bear this out. Patients consistently report improvement in their symptoms, but perhaps more importantly, they gain deeper insight into their troubles that goes beyond what many residential therapy for depression or psychiatric residential treatment programs offer. This can lead to lasting change that enables them to take back control of their lives.
Former Patient Stories
Unlike some inpatient treatment for anxiety and depression options that focus on stabilization alone, our outcomes reflect long-term change. Former patients often say Riggs was the first residential therapy for depression center where they felt truly understood.
Getting Started
We understand that considering residential treatment is a big decision. Whether you’re exploring options for yourself or someone you care about, our admissions team is here to answer your questions and help determine if Riggs is the right fit.
Admission Process
If other treatments haven’t worked, Riggs may be right for you. Unlike some other residential treatment centers in Massachusetts or elsewhere, our relational, patient-centered treatment approach addresses underlying issues, not just symptoms.
Learn More About Admission
Speak with Admissions
From first contact to consultation, follow the steps in our admission process.
Patient Outcomes & Results
Related Resources
General Articles and Interviews
Austen Riggs Featured on The Visionaries
August 14, 2025
In 2000, The Visionaries aired a documentary featuring the Austen Riggs Center, narrated by noted actor, producer, and director Sam Waterston.
Clinical Perspectives
Austen Riggs Center: Fostering Self-Direction through Understanding and Connection
July 17, 2025
At Austen Riggs, time, space, and support for reflection can lead you to better understand yourself and your relationships, enabling you to resolve a range of issues and build a more satisfying life
News