Dr. Ellenhorn is a pioneer and leader in the development and promotion of community integration services, types of care that serve and empower individuals diagnosed with psychiatric and/or addiction issues while they remain in their own communities and outside institutional settings.

Trained as a sociologist, psychotherapist and social worker, he created the first fully operating intensive hospital diversion and wrap-around program in Massachusetts. Ellenhorn later created and led one of the first public Programs for Assertive Community Treatment teams in the state. In 2022, Ellenhorn co-founded CARDEA, a psychedelics based practice that assists those who seek recovery from deep and entrenched psychological anguish, from behaviors that are out of control, as well as those who want a more awakened life and expanded sense of existence.

Dr. Ellenhorn has authored three books on human behavior. Parasuicidality and Paradox: Breaking Through the Medical Model addresses psychiatric hospital recidivism and techniques for diverting hospital use. It was published by Springer Publishing in 2007. His most recent book, How We Change (and the Ten Reasons Why We Don’t), takes a deep dive into the dynamics that influence all human change. Published by Harper Collins, and in seven different languages, How We Change was released in May of 2020. Purple Crayons: The Art of Drawing a Life celebrates our inherent “sacred originality” and establishes a new framework for self-reliance. It was published in 2022. He has authored numerous articles, gives talks and seminars throughout the country, and provides consultation to mental health agencies, psychiatric hospitals and addiction programs.

Dr. Ellenhorn is the founder of the Shifting The Paradigm conferences, a bi‑annual series that addresses humanistic and empowering changes in behavioral healthcare. He is the executive producer of the film, Recovering Addiction: A Public Health Rescue Mission, a documentary on new, less‑oppressive means for understanding problematic substance use and other distressing habits.

Dr. Ellenhorn is the first person to receive a joint Ph.D. from Brandeis University’s prestigious Florence Heller School for Social Welfare Policy and Management and the Department of Sociology.

- BS in psychology from the University of Texas
- PsyD in clinical psychology from George Washington University
- Predoctoral internship at Pathways Community Health in Missouri
- Fellowship in Psychoanalytic Studies at the Austen Riggs Center
- Board Certified by the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis

Jeremy M. Ridenour, PsyD, ABPP, is the director of psychological testing, associate director of admissions, and a staff psychologist at the Austen Riggs Center. He is also the chair of the Erikson Scholar Search Committee. He has written and presented on schizophrenia, paranoia, personality disorders, and psychological testing.

Brett Thatcher LICSW, MTS (he/him) is a clinical social worker and psychotherapist at Gould Farm in the Berkshires and in private practice. He has completed post-graduate training in intersubjective psychotherapy and mentalization-based treatment. He has presented professionally on issues of gender and sexuality, trauma, and intersubjectivity. When not working, Brett is often found cooking a meal for friends, running and cycling through the hills, or reading his way through a pile of books.

After a successful twenty-year career teaching college-level history (University of Michigan, Union College, and Sarah Lawrence College) Phyllis resigned her tenure at Sarah Lawrence College and undertook journalism training (at Columbia University's J School). Informed by a masters degree in Public Health (from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health), she became a full time writer and editor of a website hosting opinions and reader contributions about behavioral health, while aggregating news and information about mental illnesses. MIWatch.org (now defunct) enabled some of the earliest conversations introducing recovery-oriented initiatives into the larger community. Partly due to her family's experience of mental illness in every generation, and partly because she taught the history of health care to graduate students studying health advocacy, writing about mental health is a natural byproduct of her life's journey.

In addition to three previous books, her work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals as diverse as the History of Education Quarterly, American Journal of Orthpsychiatry, to chapters in specialized volumes such as Research in Community and Mental Health. Later, her investigative reporting appeared in City Limits, The Nation and Extra!

She lives in West Stockbridge, Mass., where she and her husband, a retired physician, moved just before the pandemic from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where they raised their children and lived for nearly forty years.

Teri Bryant holds a master’s degree in education and is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She completed her training in family therapy at The Family Center/Kantor Family Institute in Somerville, Mass., and earned her certification in Open Dialogue through a two-year training program at The Institute for Dialogic Practice in North Hampton, Mass. Teri trains Ellenhorn clinicians in Open Dialogue/Dialogic Practice and also has a broad range of expertise and training in management and leadership, psychosocial injury, Integrated Dual Diagnosis treatment, adoption, LGBTQi+ support, Motivational Interviewing, Mentalization-Based Therapy, Internal Family Systems, Reiki, and family education and coaching. In addition to her work at Ellenhorn, Teri manages her own private practice, through which she works with individuals, couples and families.