Stockbridge, MA, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 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”
Austen Riggs Medical Director/CEO Eric M. Plakun, MD, stated, “We received a number of excellent submissions for this year’s prize. Ultimately, Ms. Dreier’s remarkable and illuminating piece on the importance of privacy and boundaries in therapeutic relationships, particularly with vulnerable populations, emerged the winner. We congratulate Ms. Dreier and thank her for this important piece of journalism.”
Speaking about the recognition, Dreier offered, “I've been so inspired by past winners of the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize, and am tremendously humbled to be in their company. This prize is so special because it recognizes a topic that is too often stigmatized and or simply ignored and pushed out of mainstream coverage. I also take this award as an acknowledgment of the bravery of the young man who entrusted the Post with his story, at great personal risk, and the therapists who put their careers on the line to draw attention to what they saw as a violation of the core tenets of client confidentiality. I hope this recognition helps bring more attention to the gaps in mental health care for children who seek asylum in the US.”
The Austen Riggs Center will hold a virtual event later this year to honor Dreier.
About the Prize
The Austen Riggs Center Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media recognizes a select group of media professionals, including journalists, writers, and others who create exemplary work that contributes to a deeper understanding of and greater public awareness about mental health issues, and carries an award of $3,000.
About the Austen Riggs Center
The Riggs Center is a leading psychiatric hospital and residential treatment program that has been serving adults since its founding in 1919. Within an open setting, patients participate in an intensive treatment milieu that emphasizes respectful engagement. Individual psychodynamic psychotherapy is provided four times a week by doctors on staff. The Erikson Institute for Education and Research of the Austen Riggs Center studies individuals in their social contexts through research, training, education, and outreach programs in the local community and beyond. Riggs is consistently ranked a “Best Hospital in Psychiatry” by U.S. News & World Report. For more information, visit www.austenriggs.org.
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