Eric M. Plakun, MD

Medical Director, CEO

Eric M. Plakun, MD is Medical Director/CEO of the Austen Riggs Center, and former Harvard Medical School clinical faculty member. He is the editor of 2 books, including Treatment Resistance and Patient Authority: The Austen Riggs Reader (Norton, 2011), author of close to a hundred published papers and book chapters, and has presented many scientific papers. Dr. Plakun is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and an elected member of its Board of Trustees. He is past chair of the APA Committee on Psychotherapy by Psychiatrists, APA Bylaws Committee, and past leader and founder of its Psychotherapy Caucus. He is a past member of the APA Assembly Executive Committee, and past chair of the Assembly Committee of Representatives of Subspecialties and Sections. Dr. Plakun served as plaintiffs’ expert on adult mental disorders in the landmark case of Wit versus United Behavioral Health/Optum. He has been honored as the Outstanding Psychiatrist in Clinical Psychiatry by the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society. Dr. Plakun is a leader in organized psychiatry and psychoanalysis, an advocate for the value of psychotherapy and other psychosocial treatments, and an advocate for access to care. 

Before entering psychiatry, Dr. Plakun served as a rural general practitioner in Vermont—where he made house calls on skis.