Stella Chess

In 1956 Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas launched the pioneering New York Longitudinal Study, a systematic investigation into the concept of temperament that has been pursued to the present decade. The findings from this study - that temperamental profiles of infants, children, adolescents, and adults show specific individual behavioral characteristics - are accepted as basic to the psychological mechanism of behavioral functioning. Now, these two preeminent authorities and teaches in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry present an essential introduction to their internationally recognized work. This volume takes the reader from concept - including the definition of temperament and the studies that support and expand upon that definition - to specific explorations of temperament and its impact across various practice settings and special populations.

Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas' new book illuminates one of the most significant theoretical and practical implications in professional publications on temperament today: the concept of goodness of fit. When individuals achieve accordance with the properties and expectations of their respective environments, they have attained goodness of fit, which ultimately enables their psychological growth and health. They can function on a healthy level with a potential for a positive life course.Beginning with a clear definition and explanation of the concept of goodness of fit, the book goes on to delineate the evolution of the goodness of fit concept, its clinical applications, and the biopsychosocial elements relevant to the goodness of fit model. The authors provide insightful step-by-step commentaries on individual case histories that concern such problems. Each case is unique and intriguing, and is reviewed by the authors in a compelling manner. As is appropriate to their research, they have wisely taken into account a wide variety of environmental expectations and demands-parental and other caregivers' child practices and goals, peer group judgments, special community values, as well as cultural and ethnic diversity. They also address possible educational rules and expectations, career stresses, sexual issues and marital conflicts.In the past, clinical applications of the concept of goodness of fit have been restricted to a modest number of community parent guidance temperament programs and have not received their due attention. In their recent work, however, Chess and Thomas, long-standing psychiatrists with forty years of clinical experience, step outside past boundaries and explore a panoply of clinical cases, including all age-periods, ranging from infancy to adulthood. Using the clinical data obtained from numerous case histories, the authors develop an insightful clinical system from which researchers and clinicians of mental health professionals, pediatricians and educators alike can benefit.Goodness of Fit: Clinical Applications, From Infancy through Adult Life aims to answer the question of how to create a healthy consonance between individuals and their environments in order to achieve optimal development, and will undoubtedly enhance both our understanding of psychological development and personality maturation as well as the clinical methods used to analyze them.

Stella Chess's many admirers throughout the world have long looked forward to the day when she would produce her own textbook of child psychiatry. They will not be disappointed in this thoughtful and per­ ceptive account of the principles and practices of the subject, written in collaboration with Dr. Hassibi. It has all the hallmarks we have come to recognize as distinctive of the Chess approach to child psychiatry-gentle yet subtle and penetrating, always appreciative of the feelings and concerns of both the children and their parents, well informed and critically aware of research findings but far from over­ awed by the contributions of science, and above all immensely practi­ cal. Anyone who wants to know how one of the world's outstanding clinicians appraises what child psychiatry has to offer could do no bet­ ter than to read this book. Child psychiatry differs from general psychiatry in being con­ cerned with a developing organism, and it is entirely appropriate that the book begins with an account of child development and of the prin­ cipal theories put forward to explain it. Chess and Hassibi recognize the importance of theory in organizing ideas and in suggesting expla­ nations, but they remain skeptical of how far existing theories do in fact account for the outstanding issues in development. They note the limitations of all theories in explaining how development takes place and why individual differences occur in the way they do.

Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas' new book illuminates one of the most significant theoretical and practical implications in professional publications on temperament today: the concept of goodness of fit. When individuals achieve accordance with the properties and expectations of their respective environments, they have attained goodness of fit, which ultimately enables their psychological growth and health. They can function on a healthy level with a potential for a positive life course.Beginning with a clear definition and explanation of the concept of goodness of fit, the book goes on to delineate the evolution of the goodness of fit concept, its clinical applications, and the biopsychosocial elements relevant to the goodness of fit model. The authors provide insightful step-by-step commentaries on individual case histories that concern such problems. Each case is unique and intriguing, and is reviewed by the authors in a compelling manner. As is appropriate to their research, they have wisely taken into account a wide variety of environmental expectations and demands-parental and other caregivers' child practices and goals, peer group judgments, special community values, as well as cultural and ethnic diversity. They also address possible educational rules and expectations, career stresses, sexual issues and marital conflicts.In the past, clinical applications of the concept of goodness of fit have been restricted to a modest number of community parent guidance temperament programs and have not received their due attention. In their recent work, however, Chess and Thomas, long-standing psychiatrists with forty years of clinical experience, step outside past boundaries and explore a panoply of clinical cases, including all age-periods, ranging from infancy to adulthood. Using the clinical data obtained from numerous case histories, the authors develop an insightful clinical system from which researchers and clinicians of mental health professionals, pediatricians and educators alike can benefit.Goodness of Fit: Clinical Applications, From Infancy through Adult Life aims to answer the question of how to create a healthy consonance between individuals and their environments in order to achieve optimal development, and will undoubtedly enhance both our understanding of psychological development and personality maturation as well as the clinical methods used to analyze them.

In 1956 Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas launched the pioneering New York Longitudinal Study, a systematic investigation into the concept of temperament that has been pursued to the present decade. The findings from this study - that temperamental profiles of infants, children, adolescents, and adults show specific individual behavioral characteristics - are accepted as basic to the psychological mechanism of behavioral functioning. Now, these two preeminent authorities and teaches in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry present an essential introduction to their internationally recognized work. This volume takes the reader from concept - including the definition of temperament and the studies that support and expand upon that definition - to specific explorations of temperament and its impact across various practice settings and special populations.

Today's parents are faced with a wealth of exciting but often confusing new ideas about child development and parent-child relationships. In this liberating and enlightening book, Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas, whose pioneering studies have earned them a worldwide reputation, draw on their own and others' research to systematically sort out fact from fantasy about how children develop. In lively layman's language they provide authoritative and timely answers to the questions parents most often ask, such as "How crucial are my child's first three years?", "Can IQ be changed?", and "Is adolescent rebellion inevitable?". Along the way they explode many of the myths that shackle parents and professionals alike.

This book offers a realistic and eminently practical understanding of the role temperament plays in development. The combination of wisdom, common sense, and concrete clinical strategies found in these pages will prove invaluable to psychiatric and health professionals, teachers, and special educators. It also serves as a benchmark text for advanced courses in child psychology and psychiatry.

Stella Chess's many admirers throughout the world have long looked forward to the day when she would produce her own textbook of child psychiatry. They will not be disappointed in this thoughtful and per­ ceptive account of the principles and practices of the subject, written in collaboration with Dr. Hassibi. It has all the hallmarks we have come to recognize as distinctive of the Chess approach to child psychiatry-gentle yet subtle and penetrating, always appreciative of the feelings and concerns of both the children and their parents, well informed and critically aware of research findings but far from over­ awed by the contributions of science, and above all immensely practi­ cal. Anyone who wants to know how one of the world's outstanding clinicians appraises what child psychiatry has to offer could do no bet­ ter than to read this book. Child psychiatry differs from general psychiatry in being con­ cerned with a developing organism, and it is entirely appropriate that the book begins with an account of child development and of the prin­ cipal theories put forward to explain it. Chess and Hassibi recognize the importance of theory in organizing ideas and in suggesting expla­ nations, but they remain skeptical of how far existing theories do in fact account for the outstanding issues in development. They note the limitations of all theories in explaining how development takes place and why individual differences occur in the way they do.