Philanthropy Helps Drive Education, Research, and Advocacy at the Erikson Institute

“If there is any responsibility in the cycle of life it must be that one generation owes to the next that strength by which it can come to face ultimate concerns in its own way,” noted psychoanalyst Erik Erikson wrote in 1964*.

60 years later, the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center(EI) honors that sentiment by offering mental health professionals, scholars, researchers, artists, and others from a broad spectrum of disciplines a space to probe the problems of individuals, groups, and society.

“The EI explores the intersection where psychoanalytic theory meets cultural, historical, biological, social, and creative components of our world,” said Jane Tillman, PhD, ABPP, the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Director of the Erikson Institute.“What began with the 1985 founding of the Erikson Scholar Program and was formalized 30 years ago in 1994 when we launched the Institute, continues today as a vibrant epicenter of curiosity and discovery.”

Initiatives from the EI include:

In addition, the EI organizes and presents more than a dozen online continuing education (CE) and continuing medical education (CME) courses for psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, and other mental health professionals each year and has a catalogue of over 60 recorded courses that people can access at their convenience.

“The Grand Rounds, Friday Night Guest Lectures, Roundtables, and other events we offer cover an extremely varied number of topics,” Tillman said. “The presenters, who are some of the keenest thinkers in the sciences, arts, humanities, and behavioral healthcare, generously enable us to share the recorded versions free of charge and in doing so, help us reach a much more diverse audience,” she added.

The Erikson Institute is comprised of a staff that includes the director, a director of research, a director and an associate director of training, a director of psychiatric education, an archivist/librarian and manager of operations, an education coordinator, and a program assistant. (Note: The director of research and two administrators are full-time. Other members of the EI team have additional clinical or administrative roles within the Austen Riggs Center.) On average, the Center spends about 13% of its budget (approximately $3.5 million) annually to support education, research, training, and advocacy. 

“The exponential growth of the EI over the past decades reflects support from the Austen Riggs Center, supplemented by local, state, and national grants, and philanthropic giving,” said Jodi Shafiroff, director of Development and Alumni Relations at the Center. “Gifts, in particular, have proven a robust means of financial aid over the years,” she added.

Those donations include a $3 million planned gift from Evelyn Nef Stefansson to establish the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Endowment Fund which, in part, provides compensation for the EI director; $150,000 from Michael Garrett, MD, to fund psychosis education initiatives; $100,000 from Tova Friedler Usdan, PhD, to create the Karen Usdan Memorial Fund that supports the Patient Library in the Inn; $30,000 from philanthropist Harold Grinspoon and $25,000 for a matching gift challenge from his Foundation to support several aspects of the Center’s operations; and $35,000 from Paul Roberts, MD, PA, to start the Yasmin Roberts Memorial Lecture Fund ($15,000 for the original gift and $1,000 in subsequent annual contributions).

“Whether it’s major endowed gifts, planned gifts, responses to the annual appeal, or individuals helping us through online donations, each time we receive support we take a step closer to realizing Erikson’s ideal of one generation offering knowledge to the next,” Shafiroff said.

* Erikson, E. H. (1964). Insight and responsibility: Lectures on the ethical implications of psychoanalytic insight. W W Norton & Co., p. 133.