Eric M. Plakun | |
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Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Hofstra University (BA) Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (MD) Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (psychiatric residency) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Psychoanalysis, psychiatry |
Institutions | Austen Riggs Center |
Eric M. Plakun is an American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher and forensic psychiatrist. He is the current medical director/CEO at the Austen Riggs Center [1] in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. [2] Plakun's primary interests include the mental health advocacy, full implementation of the mental health parity law, access-to-care issues, and reducing health disparities; [3] the value of and evidence base for psychosocial treatments and the diagnosis, treatment, longitudinal course and outcome of patients with borderline personality disorder and treatment resistant disorders. [4]
Plakun has been widely published and quoted in the media on psychotherapy and psychiatry, including in The New York Times [5] and The Globe and Mail . [6] He has appeared in the media to discuss his psychiatric work on WAMC, the Albany, New York, affiliate of NPR. [7] and on CBS 60 Minutes . [8] His psychiatric research has been widely cited. [9]
Plakun attended Hofstra University and received an M.D. from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1972. [10] After an internship in medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Plakun worked as a rural primary care practitioner in Vermont before completing a psychiatric residency also at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and a Fellowship and Advanced Fellowship in Psychoanalytic Studies at the Austen Riggs Center. [4] He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, [2] and serves on the APA Board of Trustees representing New England and Eastern Canada. He is a former member of the APA Assembly, where he served as chair of the Assembly Committee of Representatives of Subspecialties and Sections and on the Assembly Executive Committee. In the APA he has also been past chair of the Committee on Psychotherapy by Psychiatrists, and the founding leader of the APA Psychotherapy Caucus. Plakun is a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists and a Fellow of the American College of Psychoanalysts. [11] He is a Psychoanalytic Fellow and former Trustee of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry. [12] He is an associate editor of the journal Psychodynamic Psychiatry. [13] Plakun also served for more than a decade with the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology as a member of the written test committee and as an oral examiner. In 2003, Plakun was selected by the 1700 member Massachusetts Psychiatric Society as the "Outstanding Psychiatrist in Clinical Psychiatry." [4] In addition, Plakun is a member of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) Committee on Psychotherapy [14] and the American College of Psychoanalysts Board of Regents. [15]
Plakun led the effort that culminated in the founding of the American Psychiatric Association Psychotherapy Caucus, established in 2014. [16] The purpose of the caucus is to connect APA members who share an interest in psychotherapy and psychosocial treatments as well as to "raise the profile of psychotherapy and psychosocial treatment in psychiatry, and to secure skills in these areas as part of the training and identity of future psychiatrists so the field and its practitioners are practicing within a genuinely biopsychosocial model." [17] The caucus is engaged in a number of advocacy and educational activities and currently has close to 300 members. [18] [19]
Plakun is the editor of New Perspectives on Narcissism (American Psychiatric Press, 1990) [20] and Treatment Resistance and Patient Authority: The Austen Riggs Reader (W.W. Norton & Company, 2011) [21] and author of nearly 100 articles and book chapters on the diagnosis, treatment, longitudinal course and outcome of patients with borderline personality disorder, treatment resistant disorders, and on shared elements of various schools of psychotherapy. An advocate for the value of psychotherapy and psychosocial treatment, Plakun has argued for the full implementation of the Mental Health Parity and Addictions Equity Act, served as Plaintiffs’ expert on adult mental disorders in Wit v. United Behavioral Health federal class-action, and has presented [22] and written about the case. [23] He has also researched and written on what he calls "Psychiatry’s False Assumptions": [1] genes = disease; [2] patients present with single disorders that respond to specific evidence-based treatments; and [3] the best treatments are pills. Separately, he has written about psychodynamic residential treatment for patients who have encountered an impasse in their treatment and has called for an evidence-based, inclusive reconceptualization of how psychotherapy competencies are presented and taught to residents. [24]
Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques that deal in part with the unconscious mind, and which together form a method of treatment for mental disorders. The discipline was established in the early 1890s by Sigmund Freud, whose work stemmed partly from the clinical work of Josef Breuer and others. Freud developed and refined the theory and practice of psychoanalysis until his death in 1939. In an encyclopedic article, he identified the cornerstones of psychoanalysis as "the assumption that there are unconscious mental processes, the recognition of the theory of repression and resistance, the appreciation of the importance of sexuality and of the Oedipus complex." Freud's colleagues Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung developed offshoots of psychoanalysis which they called individual psychology (Adler) and analytical psychology (Jung), although Freud himself wrote a number of criticisms of them and emphatically denied that they were forms of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis was later developed in different directions by neo-Freudian thinkers, such as Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, and Harry Stack Sullivan.
Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome problems. Psychotherapy aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills. Numerous types of psychotherapy have been designed either for individual adults, families, or children and adolescents. Certain types of psychotherapy are considered evidence-based for treating some diagnosed mental disorders; other types have been criticized as pseudoscience.
Group psychotherapy or group therapy is a form of psychotherapy in which one or more therapists treat a small group of clients together as a group. The term can legitimately refer to any form of psychotherapy when delivered in a group format, including art therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy, but it is usually applied to psychodynamic group therapy where the group context and group process is explicitly utilized as a mechanism of change by developing, exploring and examining interpersonal relationships within the group.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD), also known as emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD), is a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive, long-term pattern of significant interpersonal relationship instability, a distorted sense of self, and intense emotional responses. Individuals diagnosed with BPD frequently exhibit self-harming behaviours and engage in risky activities, primarily due to challenges in regulating emotional states to a healthy, stable baseline. Symptoms such as dissociation, a pervasive sense of emptiness, and an acute fear of abandonment are prevalent among those affected.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalytic psychotherapy are two categories of psychological therapies. Their main purpose is revealing the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension, which is inner conflict within the mind that was created in a situation of extreme stress or emotional hardship, often in the state of distress. The terms "psychoanalytic psychotherapy" and "psychodynamic psychotherapy" are often used interchangeably, but a distinction can be made in practice: though psychodynamic psychotherapy largely relies on psychoanalytical theory, it employs substantially shorter treatment periods than traditional psychoanalytical therapies. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is evidence-based; the effectiveness of psychoanalysis and its relationship to facts is disputed.
Peter A. Olsson is an American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and author. He is author of the book, Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time: A Psychological Study of Destructive Cult Leaders from Rev. Jim Jones to Osama bin Laden.
Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) is a brief, attachment-focused psychotherapy that centers on resolving interpersonal problems and symptomatic recovery. It is an empirically supported treatment (EST) that follows a highly structured and time-limited approach and is intended to be completed within 12–16 weeks. IPT is based on the principle that relationships and life events impact mood and that the reverse is also true. It was developed by Gerald Klerman and Myrna Weissman for major depression in the 1970s and has since been adapted for other mental disorders. IPT is an empirically validated intervention for depressive disorders, and is more effective when used in combination with psychiatric medications. Along with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), IPT is recommended in treatment guidelines as a psychosocial treatment of choice for depression.
The Austen Riggs Center is a psychiatric treatment facility in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was founded by Austen Fox Riggs in 1913 as the Stockbridge Institute for the Study and Treatment of Psychoneuroses before being renamed in honor of Austen Riggs on July 21, 1919.
Peter Fonagy, is a Hungarian-born British psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist. He studied clinical psychology at University College London. He is a Professor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Developmental Science Head of the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London, Chief Executive of the Anna Freud Centre, and a training and supervising analyst in the British Psycho-Analytical Society in child and adult analysis. His clinical interests center on issues of borderline psychopathology, violence, and early attachment relationships. His work attempts to integrate empirical research with psychoanalytic theory. He has published over 500 papers, and 270 chapters and has authored 19 and edited 17 books.
Glen Owens Gabbard is an American psychiatrist known for authoring professional teaching texts for the field. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and is also training and supervising analyst at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in Houston.
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of deleterious mental conditions. These include various matters related to mood, behaviour, cognition, perceptions, and emotions.
The American Academy of Psychodynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (AAPDPP) is a scholarly society including psychiatrists interested in all aspects of psychodynamic psychiatry.
Richard C. Friedman was an academic psychiatrist, the Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, and a faculty member at Columbia University. He has conducted research in the endocrinology and the psychodynamics of homosexuality, especially within the context of psychoanalysis. Friedman was born in The Bronx, New York.
Supportive psychotherapy is a psychotherapeutic approach that integrates various therapeutic schools such as psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral, as well as interpersonal conceptual models and techniques.
The mainstay of management of borderline personality disorder is various forms of psychotherapy with medications being found to be of little use.
Allen J. Frances is an American psychiatrist. He is currently Professor and Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. He is best known for serving as chair of the American Psychiatric Association task force overseeing the development and revision of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). Frances is the founding editor of two well-known psychiatric journals: the Journal of Personality Disorders and the Journal of Psychiatric Practice.
Andrew J. Gerber is an American psychoanalyst and the current president and medical director of Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut. His principal interests and research lie in studying the neurobiological bases of social cognition, particularly in relation to autism spectrum disorders and change in response to psychotherapy. He is a member of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychoanalytic Association and the Psychoanalytic Psychodynamic Research Society.
Nancy McWilliams, Ph.D., ABPP., is emerita visiting professor at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University. She has written on personality and psychotherapy.
Svein Haugsgjerd is a Norwegian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He is notable for using psychodynamic psychotherapy to treat patients with schizophrenia.
Adolph Stern was an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who is credited with producing the first formal account of Borderline personality. He worked with this group who he felt did not respond well to classical psychoanalytic work. He argued that histories of trauma were very common and that more active and supportive techniques were required