Heinz Werner

This book’s aim is to rescue from oblivion the work of a forgotten founder of developmental psychology: Austrian psychologist Heinz Werner. Based on the Orthogenetic Principle, Werner created a structuralist-systemic way of understanding organismic development as genetic processes always leading parts of a system to increasing levels of differentiation and hierarchical integration in relation to the whole system. This made him one of the pioneers of developmental sciences along with figures such as James Baldwin, Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget. Werner, however, has never enjoyed the same degree of recognition as his peers and his work started to fall into oblivion by the end of the 20th century.

By rescuing Heinz Werner’s work from oblivion, authors in this volume argue that it’s possible to find a way to the future of developmental psychology by looking at a forgotten part of its past. So, this contributed volume brings together chapters that review Heinz Werner’s main theoretical contributions to developmental psychology, point to the limitations of Werner’s work and propose new theoretical and methodological approaches that build upon Werner’s work to contribute to revitalize his legacy and make his original ideas the basis of a holistic approach to developmental psychology that aims at understanding development in a systemic and contextualized way.

Heinz Werner: A Forgotten Pioneer in Developmental Sciences will be an invaluable resource for researchers and students in the fields of developmental, educational and theoretical psychology.