Wynn Schwartz


Wynn R. Schwartz is an American psychologist and psychoanalyst. He is a Lecturer on Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and teaches in the Harvard Extension School. His work is associated with descriptive psychology and includes writing on the person concept, empathy in psychotherapy, hypnosis and episodic memory, and dreaming.

Education and career

Schwartz studied at Duke University and received a Ph.D. in clinical and experimental psychology at the University of Colorado Boulder. He trained as a research psychoanalyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.
Schwartz is a Lecturer on Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has taught in the Harvard Extension School. According to Harvard Extension School course materials, he has also taught or held faculty roles at institutions including William James College, Wellesley College, the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis. He maintains a private practice in Boston.
Schwartz served as President of the Society for Descriptive Psychology in 2014–2015.

Work

Harvard Extension School materials describe Schwartz's research interests as including empathy and empathic action; dreaming and problem representation; maturation and behavior change; and the role of liberation, improvisation, and play in psychotherapy.

Descriptive psychology and the person concept

In Descriptive Psychology and the Person Concept: Essential Attributes of Persons and Behavior, Schwartz develops an account of the person concept within the tradition of Descriptive Psychology founded by Peter G. Ossorio. The book was reviewed in the Journal for Person-Oriented Research in 2025.

Empathy and psychotherapy

Schwartz has written about empathy in psychotherapy and supervision. In a review of Schwartz's 2019 book, Lars-Gunnar Lundh describes Schwartz as emphasizing perspective-taking and "empathic action" in his treatment of empathy.

Hypnosis and memory

Schwartz has published experimental work on hypnosis and episodic memory, including articles on time perception and recall during hypnotic involvement.

Dreaming

Schwartz has coauthored publications on dreaming and sleep, including work on memory, emotion, and REM sleep and a research-based discussion of the psychoanalytic theory of dreaming.

Selected works

Descriptive Psychology and the Person Concept: Essential Attributes of Persons and Behavior.
  • "Politics and religion: Revisiting psychotherapy's third rail".
  • "What Is a Person and How Can We Be Sure? A Paradigm Case Formulation".
  • "Presentations of self and the status dynamics of psychotherapy and supervision".
  • "From passivity to competence: A conceptualization of knowledge, skill, tolerance, and empathy".
  • "Hypnosis and episodic memory".