| Temperament Today is the 4th birthday of my first-born son. He is a great person and being associated with him is one of the great joys of my life. So you can understand why I was excited when I read about the life’s work of Dr. Alexander Thomas, who found that “over the years, almost unnoticeably, parents and children tend to become more like one another.” The more I become like him, the better my world will be. Dr. Alexander Thomas, 89, Who Studied Human Temperament, Is Dead January 31, 2003 By WOLFGANG SAXON Dr. Alexander Thomas, a child psychiatrist who served as director of psychiatry at Bellevue and whose research revealed much about the nature of human temperament, died on Wednesday at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan. He was 89. For much of his professional life, Dr. Thomas worked and wrote with his wife, Dr. Stella Chess, also a child psychiatrist. They met at New York University Medical School, married in 1938 and collaborated as researchers, clinicians and parents. Both became professors at N.Y.U. In the late 1950’s, they undertook a long-term project known as the New York Longitudinal Study, which followed the emotional and social development of 133 children for 30 years, starting at birth, to understand temperament and its development. 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, 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. Dr. Thomas and Dr. Chess wrote many papers and books on their research. Among those in print are “Origins and Evolution of Behavior Disorders” (1987), “Temperament: Theory and Practice” (1996), and “Temperament in Clinical Practice” (1995). They also wrote “Your Child Is a Person: A Psychological Approach to Parenthood Without Guilt” (1965). Alexander Thomas graduated from City College in 1932 and from N.Y.U. College of Medicine in 1936. In World War II he 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 N.Y.U. faculty in 1948. Throughout much of his career he was affiliated with Bellevue as a neuropsychiatrist and psychiatrist. 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. Dr. Thomas is survived by his wife; three sons, Richard, of Yonkers, Leonard, of New Orleans, and Kenneth, of Manhattan; two brothers, Sidney, of Syracuse, and Bernard, of Detroit; a sister, Martha Roth of San Francisco; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Copyright 2003 New York Times Company (Registration required) |
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