Alexander Thomas

Background

Alexander Thomas was born on January 11, 1914, in New York, United States. He was the son of Herman and Rose Thomas.

Education

Thomas graduated from City College in 1932, where he got a Bachelor of Science, and from New York University College of Medicine in 1936 with a Doctor of Medicine.

Career

During World War II Alexander Thomas was a captain and medical officer in the Army Air Force, assigned to neuropsychiatry. He completed his medical training at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital and joined the New York University faculty in 1948.

Throughout much of his career, he was affiliated with Bellevue Hospital as a neuropsychiatrist and psychiatrist from 1938 to 1968. He became the hospital's director of psychiatry in 1968 and served for 10 years, often finding himself in the middle of conflicts over conditions in Bellevue's psychiatric and prison wards, struggling with budget constraints and patients' needs.

In that stormy interlude, he and Samuel Sillen wrote ''Racism and Psychiatry'' (1972), examining the extent to which white racist attitudes had permeated the fields of mental health.

Thomas and his wife Stella wrote many papers and books on their research. Among those in print are ''Origins and Evolution of Behavior Disorders'' (1987), ''Temperament in Clinical Practice'' (1995), and ''Temperament: Theory and Practice'' (1996).

They also wrote ''Your Child Is a Person: A Psychological Approach to Parenthood Without Guilt'' (1965).

Achievements

• Alexander Thomas was an outstanding psychiatrist, neurologist, and educator. He has been listed as a noteworthy psychiatrist by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Origins and Evolution of Behavioral Disorders: From Infancy to Adult Life

    (Beginning in 1956, Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas trac...)

    1987
  • Temperament in Clinical Practice

    (This book offers a realistic and eminently practical unde...)

    1995
  • Racism & Psychiatry 1972
  • Temperament 1996

Views

As a psychiatrist, Thomas's special interest was the human temperament, and he conducted much of his research on children. In the 1950s he and his wife, child psychiatrist Stella Chess, participated in what would be a thirty-year project to explore the origins of temperament. They studied more than a hundred people from birth to adulthood.

The research by the couple and their colleagues found that while temperament appears to be well established at birth it is not immutable. Over the years, almost unnoticeably, parents and children tend to become more like one another.

In some cases, their findings ran counter to accepted wisdom.

Individual development, their study indicated, is neither wholly preordained genetically, nor is it wholly determined environmentally. While genes delineate the scope of variations, the environment applies the final touches.

Their seminal understanding of the dynamics between biology and the environment influenced the investigations of later researchers in psychiatry as well as genetics.

Connections

Alexander married Stella Chess on June 28, 1938. They had four children: Joan, Richard, Leonard, and Kenneth.

Father:

Herman Thomas

Mother:

Rose Thomas

Wife:

Stella (Chess) Thomas

Daughter:

Kenneth Thomas

Son:

Joan Thomas

Son:

Leonard Thomas

Son:

Richard Thomas

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, vol. 212
  2011