Erikson Scholar

Location: Stockbridge

The Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA invites applications for the 2027 Erikson Scholar-in-Residence program. The Erikson Institute serves as a bridge between the clinical work of the Austen Riggs Center, an internationally recognized residential treatment program for individuals with complex psychiatric disorders, and broader academic, clinical, and professional communities. The Scholar-in-Residence program supports engagement in interdisciplinary scholarship that spans a broad range of psychiatric, social, cultural, and theoretical questions as they emerge from contemporary clinical and institutional practice.

The Erikson Scholar-in-Residence program advances the mission of the Austen Riggs Center by fostering rigorous scholarship that examines how resilience and self-direction are supported in individuals with complex psychiatric problems, and by translating clinical experience into sustained intellectual inquiry.

Purpose of Residency

The Erikson Scholar-in-Residence program is designed for scholars whose work benefits from immersion in an institutional environment that provides a rare opportunity to think alongside clinicians working with people with complex psychiatric problems. The scholar gains exposure to how responsibility, resilience, authority, and ethical care are encountered in everyday clinical and institutional life within a therapeutic community. Scholars use this setting as a context for reflection and conceptual development that informs and advances their scholarly work.

Residency Experience

Scholars become part of the clinical and intellectual life of the Center through focused work on a proposed scholarly project, participation in selected clinical meetings as observers or discussants, and presentations to clinicians and scholars within the Riggs community. Scholars contribute to the intellectual life of the Center through formal and informal exchanges and use the clinical and institutional setting of Riggs to inform and advance their work.

Scholars do not assume any clinical responsibilities and there are no opportunities for human subjects research involving Austen Riggs Center patients. Engagement with clinical work is observational and dialogical, intended to support scholar reflection..

Eligibility and Disciplinary Scope

The residency is aimed at scholars who have completed their graduate training and are established in an academic or clinical career, including faculty on sabbatical and clinician-scholars.

Applications are welcome from scholars in fields including, but not limited to, psychoanalysis, anthropology, history, law, literary criticism, political science, sociology and other disciplines in the arts and sciences are welcome.

Term and Support

The Erikson Scholar-in-Residence term is 3.5 months and includes a stipend of $5,000 per month (which is prorated based on actual time in Residence), office space, administrative support, and access to the Center's library and archival resources. On-site housing in the Erikson Scholar Cottage is available to scholars when suitable. The cottage has limited accessibility and cannot be modified. The Institute is committed to nondiscriminatory access to the program and will engage in an interactive process with scholars who request accommodations;

however, alternative housing cannot be subsidized.

Application Materials

• A letter of interest
• Curriculum vitae
• Two letters of recommendation
• Proposed project description
• A recent publication related to the project
• A statement indicating how interaction with ARC's clinical and institutional work will contribute to the development of the project.

Final date to receive applications:
June 1, 2026

For more information or to apply, please email: eri