Dr. Joel G. Thomas

Joel Thomas’s research and clinical interests are focused on the effects of trauma on self-development. His work examines the phenomenology of the self using behavioral, psychophysiological, and performance-based measures of conscious and unconscious experience. He has published on the roles of empathy and expectation in therapeutic change and the influence of relational schemas (e.g., abandonment, defectiveness, emotional inhibition) on attachment, self-regulation, and self-identity. His additional scholarly interests are in philosophy of science/philosophy of mind—including debates on the nature of selfhood and its relationship to human flourishing and artificial intelligence.

Courses generally taught include Psychopathology and Problems in Living, Applied Research in Psychology, Principles and Techniques of Counseling, and What Does it Mean to be Human? (Existentialism, Humanism, and the Limits to Artificial Intelligence).

Representative Publications

Thomas, J. G., Bogdan, P. C., Katsumi, Y., Dolcos, F., & Berenbaum, H. (2025). Implicit abandonment distress: Testing the dynamic link between schema activation and physiology. Collabra: Psychology, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.129168

Thomas, J. G., Sperry, S. D., Shields, R. J., & Gregory, R. J. (2022). A novel recovery-based suicide prevention program in Upstate New York. Psychiatric Services, 73(6), 701-704.
https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.202100162

Thomas, J. G., Sharp, P. B., Niznikiewicz, M, & Heller, W. (2022). A double-blind study of empathic support and expectation as mechanisms of symptom change. Psychotherapy Research, 32(1), 115-125. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2021.1909770

Thomas, J. G. & Sharp, P. B. (2019). Mechanistic science: A new approach to comprehensive psychopathology research that relates psychological and biological phenomena. Clinical Psychological Science, 7(2), 196-215. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702618810223

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