Gould Farm

About

Gould Farm, founded in 1913 in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts, holds the distinction of being the first residential therapeutic community in the United States. For over a century, the Farm has offered a model of psychiatric recovery grounded in the conviction that meaningful work, authentic community, and sustained relationship are themselves therapeutic forces. Located on a seven-hundred-acre working farm in Monterey, Gould Farm receives adults whom it calls guests — a deliberate terminological choice reflecting the organization's rejection of passive patient identity — into a community where staff and their families live alongside residents. The work program, the core of the therapeutic model, engages guests in tending grounds, caring for farm animals, growing food, and cooking for the community, creating a structure of purposeful contribution that supports psychological reintegration. Clinical services include individual therapy with six LICSW-credentialed clinicians, consultation with two psychiatrists, and nursing care, all embedded within the relational fabric of daily communal life. A vocational counseling program supports guests preparing to return to work or education. The Farm maintains a continuum of care with transitional programs in both Boston and the Berkshires for guests moving toward greater independence. Licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, Gould Farm's century-long commitment to the therapeutic community model makes it a unique institution within American psychiatric care — one whose practice anticipated by decades the theoretical developments in psychoanalytic community treatment articulated by Main, Bion, and the British object relations tradition.

Depth Orientation

As the first residential therapeutic community in the United States, founded in 1913 — the same year Austen Riggs opened — Gould Farm represents the original American experiment in treating mental illness through communal living and purposeful labor rather than institutional confinement. The model's insistence that guests (never 'patients') are active agents in their own recovery through daily work alongside staff who live on the seven-hundred-acre campus reflects the depth-psychological understanding that healing emerges from the ground of authentic relationship and embodied participation in life. The integration of individual psychotherapy with six LICSW therapists, consulting psychiatrists, and nursing staff within this relational matrix creates a treatment environment where unconscious patterns can surface and be worked through within the context of real community engagement.

Treatment Modalities

Program Details

Best for

• Schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder
• Bipolar disorder
• Major depression
• Long-term psychiatric rehabilitation
• Failure to launch

Notable Clinicians

• Nancy Masino Martin — Clinical Director (25+ years at Gould Farm)
• AJ Metthe, LICSW — Clinician

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