Representative Publications:

Academic

I am trained in the scientist-practitioner model of clinical psychology.  An evidence-based scientific understanding informs my psychotherapy practice and clinical supervision.  My research interests include empathy, sleep and dreaming, maturation and behavior change, and the role of liberation, improvisation, and play in psychotherapy. 

I have published experimental studies on dreaming and problem representation, hypnosis and episodic memory, and engagement in psychotherapy.  As a student of Descriptive Psychology, I've developed theory-free conceptualizations of action and responsibility, the possibility of nonhuman persons, hypnosis and altered states of consciousness, and the practice and training of empathy. I am the author of Descriptive Psychology and The Person Concept: Essential Attributes of Persons and Behavior, published by Academic Press-Elsevier, 2019.  The book's focus is the interdependent, formal, and substantive relations of Individual Persons, Intentional Action, Culture, Language, and World.  It was a 2020 American Psychological Association nominee for the William James Book Award. 

Schwartz, W. (2014) What is a person and How can we be sure? A Paradigm Case Formulation. Journal of Evolution and Technology, 24 (3).

Schwartz, W. (2013) The parameters of empathy: core considerations for psychotherapy and supervision.  Advances in

Descriptive Psychology vol. 10. 
Schwartz, W. (2008)  Presentations of self and the status dynamics of psychotherapy and supervision. American  Journal of

Psychotherapy 62:51-65.
Schwartz, W. (2002)  From passivity to competence: A conceptualization of knowledge, skill, tolerance, and empathy. 

Psychiatry, 65(4), 338-345. 
Greenberg R., C. Pearlman, W. Schwartz. (1997). Using the Rorschach to Define Differences in Schizophrenics and the Implications for Treatment.

Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis.
Greenberg, R., Katz, H., Schwartz, W., Pearlman, C. (1992). A Research-Based Reconsideration of the psychoanalytic theory of Dreams Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Schwartz, W. (1984) The two concepts of action and responsibility in psychoanalysis. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Schwartz, W. (1982)  The problem of other possible persons: Dolphins, primates, and aliens. Advances in Descriptive Psychology vol. 2.
Greenberg R, C. Pearlman, W. Schwartz, (1983). Memory, emotion, and REM sleep.  Journal of  Abnormal Psychology.
Schwartz, W. (1980)  Hypnosis and episodic memory.  International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.
Schwartz, W. (1979) Degradation, accreditation, and rites of passage.  Psychiatry.
Schwartz, W. (1978)  Time and context during hypnotic involvement.  International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.