Fall Conference to Celebrate 100th Anniversary of Austen Riggs Center

STOCKBRIDGE — The Austen Riggs Center will convene a conference of national and international experts in the fields of mental healthcare, treatment, research, advocacy, and the law to explore “The Mental Health Crisis in America: Recognizing Problems, Working Toward Solutions,” a two-day conference scheduled for Sept. 21-22.

The Austen Riggs Center, founded in 1919 by Dr. Austen Fox Riggs in Stockbridge, has thrived for 100 years with an open-setting campus and state-of-the-art psychodynamic care emphasizing individual psychotherapy for people with complex psychiatric problems. This, along with significant contributions to research and clinical training, have established Riggs as a leading psychiatric hospital and residential treatment center.

“Our mental-health system is broken, and the statistics are sobering: suicide rates have increased 30{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5}, homeless individuals struggling with mental disorders are part of the urban streetscape, the opioid crisis is exploding, and emergency room boarding of patients who need psychiatric care is a growing problem,” said Dr. Eric Plakun, medical director and CEO of the Austen Riggs Center. “We are convening this conference on behalf of Americans who are dealing with profound mental-health issues and to tackle critical concerns, both clinical issues and those related to access to care, which is often improperly limited to symptom relief or crisis stabilization rather than the treatment of important underlying problems.”

The conference will examine crucial issues, including complex psychiatric problems, suicide, treatment goals, health parity law, and innovative solutions to clinical challenges. For the latest conference news and more details, visit www.austenriggs.org/centennialconference.