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)
8:11:19 PM 
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