Where History, Philosophy, and Psychology Meet: An Interview with Wayne Viney

Abstract

Wayne Viney is Professor of Psychology and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Colorado State University where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the history of psychology. He is also inaugurating a new course, The Development of Scientific Thought, for the College of Natural Sciences at Colorado State. Earlier in his career, he served as Head of the Department of Psychology, Associate Dean of the College of Natural Sciences, and Director of the University Core Curriculum in the Biological Sciences. Viney was elected President of Division 26 (History of Psychology) and of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association. He has been the recipient of 15 teaching awards at Colorado State University. In 1998, he served as a G. Stanley Hall lecturer for the American Psychological Association. He is coauthor with D. Brett King of A History of Psychology: Ideas and Context. He is also coauthor with Michael and Marilyn Wertheimer of a major bibliography entitled History of Psychology: A Guide to Information Sources. The focus of Viney's historical research has been the psychology and philosophy of William James as well as the life and work of the American humanitarian reformer, Dorothea Lynde Dix. Alexandra Rutherford is Assistant Professor of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where she is a faculty member in the History and Theory of Psychology Graduate Program. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of psychology and undergraduate courses in abnormal psychology and personality psychology. She supervises both undergraduate and graduate students in historical and theoretical research projects and serves as the assistant editor of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. She also edits the Heritage Column for The Feminist Psychologist, the newsletter of the Society for the Psychology of Women (Division 35 of the American Psychological Association). She has developed a Heritage Web site for Division 35 that is devoted to documenting the role of women in the history of psychology and promoting feminist approaches to writing, teaching, and understanding psychology's history ( www.psych.yorku.ca/femhop/ ). Her primary research areas are the history of B. F. Skinner's system in science and culture and the history of women and feminism in psychology. In 2001 she received the Division 26 (History of Psychology) Early Career Award for scholarship in the history of psychology. She is also a clinical psychologist in private practice.