Table of Contents

1. What is Descriptive Psychology and The Person Concept?2. Individual Persons, Personhood, and the Problem of Definition3. Behavior as Intentional Action4. The Judgment Diagram, Some Categories of Cognizance, and the Unconscious5. Relationships, the Relationship Formula, and Emotional Competence6. Verbal Behavior, Language, and Linguistic Self-Regulation7. Community and Culture8. Reality and the Worlds9. Empathy in Practice: A Demonstration of Some Person Concepts

Afterword and Summary: Satisfaction and the Construction of Worlds or, At the End of the Day, How Does It Feel?Appendix One: Ossorio's Status Dynamic Maxims, Behavioral Logic, and Reminders for Proper Description (Place, 1998)Appendix Two: A Glossary of Descriptive Psychology Concepts Compiled by Clarke Stone

About the Author

Wynn Schwartz received his undergraduate degree from Duke University, his doctorate from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and trained as a research psychoanalyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He is a lecturer at Harvard Medical School and a professor at William James College. He has taught at Wellesley College, the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis, and the Harvard Extension School. Dr. Schwartz is on the Editorial Board of The American Journal of Psychotherapy and maintains a psychotherapy and supervision practice in Boston where he works with individuals and couples.

Reviews

"Schwartz’s Descriptive Psychology and the Person Concept makes me want to sing and dance for joy. A student of Ossorio’s has developed the presentational skills to communicate the power and beauty of The Person Concept in all its complexity and rigor. He writes as only a good teacher can with metaphors, case examples, and appreciation of the historical and philosophical antecedents of this wonderfully complex set of conceptual distinctions. Schwartz writes well because he uses the fitting story or example to make the concepts come alive.If one studies the system, it can change one’s life. It changed mine. As a well-trained experimental social psychologist, I arrived at the University of Colorado in 1961and shared an office with Ossorio. We would debate issues, and I came to see that he had something genuinely revolutionary to offer. My thinking about persons was no longer trapped in a causal-deterministic framework that did not do justice to persons and their behavior. I now had concepts that allowed a systematic analysis of personal agency and human freedom of choice. Enjoy this wonderful book!" --Keith Davis. Ph.D., Distinguished Professor Emeritus and former Chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina

"A colleague of mine, when the subject of Descriptive Psychology ("DP") came up at a recent conference, informed me that a fellow attendee quipped that it was "psychology's best kept secret". Created by Peter Ossorio, and applied by him to topics as far ranging as artificial intelligence software for NASA, the nature of emotion, and the practice of psychotherapy, DP has somehow managed to escape the significant notice within psychology that this most innovative and ingenious approach deserves. Hopefully, Dr. Schwartz's book will serve to change this situation. Written by one of DP's foremost exponents, Descriptive Psychology and the Person Concept sets forth the key concepts of DP in an accessible and reader-friendly fashion. Along the way, Dr. Schwartz clarifies these concepts by providing numerous interesting applications (e.g., to topics of empathy, emotional competence, and theory of mind) that illustrate DP's many uses in an engaging way. I highly recommend this book to any person interested in exploring new, powerful, and different ideas in the fields of psychological science, psychopathology, and/or psychotherapy." --Raymond M. Bergner, Ph.D., Professor of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology, Illinois State University, author of: Pathological self-criticism: Assessment and treatment. (Springer Publishing)