Ossorio, Peter G.

Peter G. Ossorio (1926–) had a major impact on the conceptualization of psychology and its relationship to other disciplines and to tasks in the real world. He found himself profoundly dissatisfied with the ways in which psychology and philosophy described and [Page 722]explained human behavior. During 1963 and 1964, he achieved insights into an alternative formulation that did not succumb to the temptations of reductionism and determinism.

The first presentation of the fundamental concepts of persons and their behavior, language, the real world, and some of the conceptual tools for their rigorous representation was in 1965 with Persons. These conceptual distinctions and their elaborations have made it possible for significant advances in organizational analysis and leadership development that are directly relevant to persons engaged in educational leadership. Subsequently, he elaborated on the major components of his conceptualization of psychology and their implications in a 1971 monograph, “What Actually Happens.” In 1979, the Society for Descriptive Psychology held its first annual meeting in Boulder, Colorado, to further the dissemination of his conceptual, therapeutic, and practical advances. While the core group for the society was clinical psychologists, it attracted computer scientists, linguists, NASA scientists, educational psychologists, management consultants, and theologians. Since 1979, he has developed the insight that it is possible to codify the logic of giving and evaluating descriptions and dynamic explanations of behavior via maxims that derived not from forces, urges, or desires but from the person's position in his or her world, culminating in Ossorio's comprehensive theoretical statement in 2005, The Behavior of Persons. For example, one of the most reliable findings of studies of organizational roles is that a person's perspective changes as a function of changes in role, such as that occurring when a teacher becomes a principal or a principal becomes a superintendent. Such changes in one's position in the educational social system provide both new opportunities and new constraints.

Ossorio was born in Los Angeles, California, on May 4, 1926, the youngest of six children. He earned his BA and PhD degrees from UCLA and joined the psychology faculty of the University of Colorado (where he served until his retirement in 1991) and continues an active role as professor emeritus and clinical supervisor. During his tenure at Colorado, he directed more than 50 dissertations because of his theoretical creativity and his willingness to engage students on topics of their choice. He was highly sought out for supervision because he was recognized as a master therapist and diagnostician. A selective listing of his influences include (a) the practice of psychotherapy, (b) multicultural studies, (c) educational practices in the teaching of moral competency, (d) effective programs for educating at-risk students, and (e) creating an alternative technology for computer-assisted information searches. He continues to be active intellectually, and his current work may be described as developing descriptive metaphysics, which he believes will change how we think about and conduct both philosophy and science.