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.