SDP Members

Laurie Aylesworth, PhD

Laurie Aylesworth received his Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Colorado under the direction of Peter G. Ossorio. A practicing psychologist for more than twenty five years, he specializes in both short and long term adjustment and rehabilitation issues related to trauma, loss, and disability. He is a psychological consultant to a comprehensive pain program, several comprehensive rehabilitation clinics, and to Craig Rehabilitation Hospital. He has been a student/teacher of Judo for more than fifty years, teaching at the Denver Buddhist Temple for more than twenty-five of those years, and for fifteen years has worked toward blending his rehabilitation practice with martial arts rehabilitation strategies. Following an accident in 1988 in which he sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI), he found that traditional Western treatment was not effective for him. In order to get his life back, he turned to the Martial Arts, which he knows and believes in. As a result, he has formed the therapeutic tool he calls OMAR, Oriental Martial Arts Rehabilitation. He uses OMAR procedures in most of his private practice individual work, and in 2006 conducted the OMAR group for TBI survivors in the Hangout group of Denver.

David Bender, PhD

David describes himself as interested in "clinical topics in general. I can also speak to AA and DP, giving folks the community slant on things."

Raymond Bergner, PhD

Raymond M. Bergner received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Colorado under the direction of Peter Ossorio. He is currently Full Professor of Psychology at Illinois State University and has a private practice in Bloomington, Illinois. His work in Descriptive Psychology has been concerned with its applications to psychopathology, psychotherapy, and various philosophy of science issues. He is a two-time President of the Society for Descriptive Psychology (1984 and 2004), a member of the Editorial Board of Advances in Descriptive Psychology since its inception, and the co-editor of four volumes in this series. Dr. Bergner has published over 65 articles, book chapters, books, and edited books. Many of these articles have appeared in such national and international journals as Family Process, Psychotherapy, the American Journal of Psychotherapy, The Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, and Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice.

Laurie Bergner, PhD

Joe Blackbourn, PhD

Joe is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss). He trains both preservice and graduate special education teachers, and teaches Educational Research and Advanced Educational Psychology. He has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology (Mississippi State University, 1985). His current interests (particularly writing) are in the areas of:

  • organizational, curricular, and instructional reform,
  • the philosophical underpinning of what we do in education, ("Who are we?" , "Do we know what we are doing?" , "Do we know why we are doing it?", and "Why are we doing it this way?"),
  • tying Dr. Deming and Peter Senge’s work into educational philosophy, practice, and processes, and
  • building a focus on continuous improvement and quality at all levels of the educational system.

Steven Byers

Greg Colvin, PhD

Greg’s interests include "software engineering, artificial intelligence, spirituality, and most anything else Descriptive."

Dick Comtois, PhD

J.R. Hap Cox, PhD

Keith E. Davis, PhD

Keith E. Davis is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and has been Chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina and at Livingston College of Rutgers University. He also served as Interim Dean of Liberals at USC and as Provost from 1975-1979. His editorial work includes serving as the Founding Editor for Advances in Descriptive Psychology and as an active co-editor for seven of its nine volumes. He has also been Associate Editor of Personal Relationships and Executive Editor of the Journal of Social Psychology and its book review editor. He has served on many editorial boards including Transaction, Violence & Victims, and the Journal for Social & Personal Relationships. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from Duke University in 1963, and met Peter Ossorio in 1962 as a brand new assistant professor in the Psychology Department of the University of Colorado, Boulder. According to Keith: ’That first year we had adjacent offices and talked often about intentionality, the perception of persons, and related topics. These conversations were perplexing because Peter always had a different slant on things in the discipline than I was used to hearing, but I became convinced that he was onto something. Reading the early drafts of "Persons" (1965) and reading materials for his course in personality assessment made me convinced that there was something profound ly different and potentially useful about what later came be called Descriptive Psychology. Then we called it "Pete’s stuff." As the number of students who had taken Pete’s classes and worked with him on dissertations grew, we began to examine how to formalize the benefits of getting together to share ideas and insights and most of all to learn from Pete. Thus the founding the Society in 1978 in Boulder. My primary involvement with the Society has been as the founding editor of Advances in Descriptive Psychology, the series of edited volumes that gave practitioners of DP a chance to do their stuff without the substantial compromises that publishing in the mainstream psychology journals would have required. My own research areas are personal relationships, friendship, love, as well as the dark side of relationships including violence against intimate partners and dangerous stalking.’

Marny Farrell

Cathy Felknor, PhD

Jerry Felknor, PhD

Reg Garcia, PhD

Betty Goulden, BSN, MSW

Bryan Harnsberger, PsyD

Richard Heinrich, MD

Richard L. Heinrich, M.D. is currently the Hospice Medical Director for HealthPartners Hospice and Palliative Care Program as well as Chief of the Geriatric Psychiatry Consultation Service within the Geriatric Division of HealthPartners. HealthPartners is an integrated care delivery system in the Twin Cities. It has over 30 Clinics, and practices in several hospitals and 80+ nursing homes. Dr. Heinrich was previously Department Head of Group Health, where he implemented a large-scale organizational change project to integrate mental health, primary and specialty care. He is currently involved in two projects: one to change program culture to promote the craft of interdisciplinary team care within a hospice program, and a second to develop system wide, systematic advance care planning. He is the Director of the Center for End of Life Care of the Descriptive Psychology Institute.

Heather Holmes-Lonergan, PhD

Garnet Holmes, MA

Sonja Bunke Holt, PhD

Institute for Human Studies 5460 Ward Road Suite 200 Arvada, CO 80002

Paula Holt, JD

Joel Jeffrey, PhD

Joel Jeffrey majored in mathematics at the California Institute of Technology, and did his graduate work at the University of Colorado. He began studying Descriptive Psychology under Peter Ossorio in 1971, and received his Ph.D. in computer science in 1974. He wrote one of the first two industrial expert systems ever created, and discovered and patented a technique for applying judgment simulation vector spaces to large-scale problems. In 1999 he founded H5 Technologies, a software company based on the discovery, and served for three years as its Chief Scientist. He is a Professor of Computer Science at Northern Illinois University, where he pursues research in artificial intelligence, real world software engineering, and mathematical modeling of biological, social, and economic systems.

Cliff Johnson, MSW

Catherine Johnston, PhD

Charles Kantor, PhD

Charles Kantor received his Ph.D. under the direction of Peter G. Ossorio, in clinical psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Trained as a child clinical psychologist, he practiced as a play and family therapist at the Rochester Mental Health Center for 16 years before beginning a full time private practice. He has led workshops on role playing with children and on a variety of issues dealing with parenting adolescents and treating troubled adolescents. He has also consulted with counselors, therapists, teachers, administrators and others involved in day care centers for children, day treatment centers for adolescents, and outpatient centers treating children and adolescents.

Nancy Kantor, MSW

Rebecca Kennedy, PhD

Tricia Kennedy, MA

Ned Kirsch, PhD

Lane Lasater, PhD

Jane Littmann, PhD

Jane R. Littmann received her B.A. with high honors and Phi Beta Kappa from Oberlin College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Colorado where she studied with Peter Ossorio. Her dissertation presented a conceptualization and theory of humor. She has served as President and board member of the Society for Descriptive Psychology and on the Editorial Board of Advances in Descriptive Psychology. She interned in clinical child psychology at Judge Baker Guidance Center, affiliate of Harvard Medical School. From 1980-2006, she supervised predoctoral clinical psychology interns, advanced psychiatry residents, and trainees from other disciplines in child, adolescent, family, and adult psychotherapy, assessment, and school collaboration, retiring in 2006, as Teaching Psychologist from the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute and South Carolina Department of Mental Health and as Professor in the Department of Clinical Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. Her private practice includes psychotherapy, sports psychology, and school consultation. She is a member of Altria’s Youth Tobacco Prevention Scientific Advisory Board. Lead coach and co-founder of Columbia Fencers’ Club, she was a member of two US World Teams in Women’s Epee, and also referees nationally.

Fernand Lubuguin, PhD

Fernand Lubuguin received his B.A. with highest honors in 1982 from the University of California at Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1993 from the University of Colorado at Boulder under the mentorship of Peter G. Ossorio. He worked as a staff psychologist at Kaiser Permanente (a health maintenance organization) for over ten years before becoming a faculty member at the University of Denver in 2001. Currently, he is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Professional Psychology, where he is Director of Diversity and Director of the Professional Psychology Clinic. He is also a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. He maintains a small private practice in Denver. He has served as President of the Society for Descriptive Psychology, and is a long-standing member of the Board of Directors. He is one of the co-editors of Advances in Descriptive Psychology, volumes 9 and 10. In addition to applying the intellectual discipline of Descriptive Psychology to many aspects of his personal and professional endeavors, he is especially interested in applying Descriptive Psychology to the training of culturally competent psychotherapists.

Graduate School of Professional Psychology University of Denver 2450 So. Vine St. Denver, CO 80208 (303) 871-3988

Kimberly Lubuguin, PhD

Dan Minerva, PhD

Tom Mitchell, PhD

Ian Newby-Clark, PhD

William O'Brien

Jim Orvik, PhD

Aladdin Ossorio

C.J. Peek, PhD

C.J. Peek received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University Colorado where he studied with Dr. Peter G. Ossorio, founder of the discipline of Descriptive Psychology. C.J. is 2009-2010 President of the Society for Descriptive Psychology. He is an Associate Professor with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota Medical School, focusing on care system development, integration of behavioral and medical care, organizational effectiveness, and leadership development. He has facilitated multiple stakeholder dialogue in state and national meetings on the integration of behavioral and medical care, implementation of patient-centered medical home, and addressing behavioral risk factors in primary care. He writes, presents, and consults on integrated behavioral and medical care, patient-clinician communication, productive conversations and dialogue across disciplines or organizational areas—blending clinical, organizational, and leadership perspectives.

Julia Trezona Peek

Bill Plotkin, PhD

Bill Plotkin, PhD, is a depth psychologist, wilderness rites guide, and ecotherapist. As the founder of Animas Valley Institute, he has, since 1981, guided thousands of people through nature-based initiatory passages, including a contemporary, Western adaptation of the pan-cultural vision quest. Previously, he has been a research psychologist (studying non-ordinary states of consciousness), professor of psychology, psychotherapist, rock musician, whitewater river boatman, and mountain-bike racer. His doctorate in psychology is from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he studied extensively with Peter G. Ossorio. In 1979, on a solo winter ascent of an Adirondack peak, Bill experienced a “call to adventure†that lead him to abandon academia in search of his true calling. He is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (New World Library, 2003) and Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (New World Library, 2008).

Dan Popov, PhD

Mary K. Roberts, PhD

Mary K. Roberts is a writer in Boulder, Colorado. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1980 and practiced as a psychologist for nine years. She then earned her M.S. in computer science from the University of Colorado and worked as a software engineer for eight years. She has served as President of the Society for Descriptive Psychology and as a member of the Editorial Board for Advances in Descriptive Psychology. She also created the Society’s first web site and served as the first Webmaster. Her recent work in Descriptive Psychology focuses on understanding a range of world reconstructive phenomena, including dreams, imaginary companions, and worlds of uncertain status.

Cory Sapin, PhD

Wynn Schwartz, PhD

Wynn Schwartz, Ph. D., is a clinical and experimental psychologist and research psychoanalyst. He is a professor of psychology at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology and on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Extension School. He has been a professor at Wellesley College and has taught at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis. He maintains a psychotherapy practice in Boston. Dr. Schwartz has been interested in clarifying fundamental aspects of the subject matters of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, dreaming and hypnosis. His published work has been both conceptual and experimental. Some of his experimental studies have focused on dreaming and problem representation and dreaming and memory, and others on hypnosis and episodic memory. As a student of Descriptive Psychology, Dr. Schwartz has been especially concerned with theory-free, pre- empirical formulations of what he believes are central subject matters for psychology, such as the concepts of action and responsibility, the range of the possible phenomena that are covered by the term "hypnosis", the limits and nature of psychotherapy, and the concept of "person".

Jack Sidman, PhD

Jacob (aka Jack) Sidman received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in 1968 writing his dissertation on empathy with both Peter Ossorio and Keith Davis as advisors. He then did a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford Medical School before becoming an assistant professor at Oberlin for several years. He then moved to the University of California Santa Cruz where he both taught psychology (e.g., basic counseling and empathy training) and worked in the Counseling and Psychological Services. He has published in several professional journals. He also taught graduate students at University of Hawaii for a year and part-time for the University of San Francisco graduate program in counseling for a number of years. He officially retired from the University of California in 1991 to go into full time private practice. He is now retired, still doing some writing and community service (e.g., County Task Force on Youth Violence Prevention) and living in Aptos, CA. with his wife, Kris who is a licensed marriage and family therapist in practice in Santa Cruz.

F. Richard Singer III

I am a Professor Emeritus in Mathematics at Webster University in Saint Louis MO. My teaching specialties are in mathematical logic and abstract algebra. My broader interest involves various types of conceptual studies, and this is at the core of my interest in Descriptive Psychology. My deepest interest in Descriptive Psychology relates to its connection with conceptual philosophy. Conceptual philosophy involves a type of activity during which the want parameter is to enhance a conceptual understanding of our most ubiquitous concepts. Unlike most work in philosophy, conceptual philosophy focuses only on concepts rather than on philosophical theories. Instead of asking about the nature of reality, it studies the most ubiquitous concepts we can use for thinking about what happens in the world. Thus, the DP reality concepts are easily integrated into conceptual philosophy. I am especially interested in relating DP and epistemics, the strand of conceptual philosophy that focuses on a purely conceptual study of understanding, and there is a paper about this on the Descriptive Psychology section of my website. I am currently using DP in the design of educational resources that focus on constructivist learning. My work in this regard is on the Constructivist Learning section of my website. I welcome communication about these and any other matters involving DP.

Bruce Smith, MD

Michael Spayd, MA

Michael is particularly interested in Descriptive Psychology applications in the areas of Organizations, Technology and Change Management. He has a consulting practice specializing in helping people in organizations create a deeper experience of community through the use of cutting-edge business practices, transition management and "way cool" information technology.

C.J. Stone

Walter Torres, PhD

Walter J. Torres Ph.D. is a clinical and forensic psychologist practicing in Denver, Colorado. His first contact with Descriptive Psychology dates to 1972, when he took a Personality course from Peter Ossorio at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Since then, Descriptive Psychology has been the keystone to his conceptual and practical orientation in both the clinical and forensic domains. He is a past President of the Society for Descriptive Psychology. His recent Descriptive formulations and presentations include trauma and its treatment, and the nature, consequences and alleviation of humiliation.

Peggy Trezona

Linda Wasserman

Julia Wechsler

Ralph Wechsler, PhD

Shirley Weisz

Aimee Yermish, PsyD

Carolyn A. Zeiger, PhD

H. Paul Zeiger, PhD

H. Paul Zeiger is semi-retired from careers in academic Computer Science and industrial Software Engineering. He received his S.B., S.M., and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, chaired the Department of Computer Science at University of Colorado, Boulder, and led software development efforts at several startup companies and one large telecommunications firm. He studied with fellow faculty member Peter Ossorio in the early 1970’s, and has since pursued applications of Descriptive Psychology to Computer Science, and, more recently, to the philosophical problems of everyday life. Paul and his wife Carolyn live in Denver, Colorado where they are pursuing private practice using holistic and Descriptive Psychology procedures with individuals having serious chronic illnesses and their partners.

James Waters, PhD

Erol Zeybekoglu, PsyD

Erol Ilhan Zeybekoglu received his Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology from William James College under the direction of Wynn Schwartz, Ph.D. He is an active member of the SDP Boston Study Group, and utilizes descriptive psychology in his practice as a FFS Outpatient Clinician at the Riverside Community Care Guidance Center Program in Cambridge Massachusetts, as well as Per Diem Community Residence Counselor for both the Appleton House Residential and Alcohol and Drug Abuse Partial Programs at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. His work in Descriptive Psychology has been primarily concerned with its applications to Emotional Behavior, Anger Management, and using a Status Dynamic Perspective in Group Therapy. He is the current President-Elect of the Society for Descriptive Psychology (2018), a member of the SDP Website Administration and Infrastructure Committee, and is the Program Planning Committee Chair for the 40th Annual Conference of the Society for Descriptive Psychology in Golden, CO. Dr. Zeybekoglu recently published his Doctoral thesis, titled “The Status Dynamics of Anger Management” (2016), available online via EBSCOhost, PsychINFO, and ProQuest Databases.