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Dr. David Williams
Biography:
As an undergraduate at Harvard in the 1950s, I fell in love with experimental psychology, and had the good fortune of working in the laboratory of B.F. Skinner, studying how behavior is controlled by the results it produces. I went immediately into graduate study at Yale, and began work in the laboratories of Fred Sheffied and Neal Miller, studying Pavlovian as well as operant conditioning. Ph.D. in hand, I came directly to Penn's Psychology Department, my interest sharply focused on the experimental analysis of behavior.
Intellectual life during the next decade at Penn broadened my perspective on the possibilities of psychology as a science, and led me to look past the boundaries of my experimental apparatus and my animal subjects. I fell in love a second time when I encountered the writings of psychotherapists; they called me out of the conditioning laboratory and into the consulting room, where I could work directly with the therapy process itself. I undertook formal training in psychotherapy at Penn, became licensed, and for a decade actively engaged in clinical practice and in the supervision of psychologists in training. For several years, I served as Psychology's Director of Clinical Training.
Two loves are better than none, but one great love is best of all-or so I believe. Now my research, and my teaching as well, are about integrating the psychologies of brain and behavior with the psychologies of personal experience, in order to construct an experimental psychology that can, with authenticity and respect, address the innermost levels of our conscious experience, where we reflect upon ourselves, consider possibilities, and exercise our will.
