Michael Thompson

Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D. is a consultant, author and psychologist specializing in children and families. He practices in Cambridge, MA. He is the clinical consultant to The Belmont Hill School and has worked in more than two hundred schools across the United States. He and his co-author, Dan Kindlon, wrote The New York Times best-selling book, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. He is the author of Speaking of Boys: Answers to the Most-Asked Questions About Raising Sons, and co-author of Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children. About Best Friends, Worst Enemies the Publishers Weekly reviewer declared, "Not since Dr. Spock and Penelope Leach has there been such a sensitive and practical guide to raising healthy children."

Dr.Thompson's first book, Finding the Heart of the Child, which he co-authored with Dr. Edward Hallowell, has been widely read by independent school educators and parents. For ten years he was a member of the faculty of the New Heads Institute run by the National Association of Independent Schools. In that role, he helped prepare over 500 new heads of independent schools to take on the responsibilities of educational leadership and is currently a member of the faculty of the Academy of International School Heads.

A dedicated speaker and traveler, Thompson has appeared on The Today Show, The Early Show, Good Morning America and Oprah. He has been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time and U.S. News and World Report and has been a guest on NPR's "Talk of the Nation".

Dr. Thompson attended the Collegiate School for Boys, the Millbrook School and received his B.A. from Harvard College. He later earned his Masters in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He received his clinical training at the Psychiatric and Psychosomatic Institute of Michael Reese Hospital, where he was a fellow in the Laboratory for Clinical Research and Training in Adolescence under the direction of Drs. Daniel Offer, Anne Petersen and Bertram Cohler. While in Chicago he taught at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology, co-led the anorexia nervosa research lab at Michael Reese Hospital and served as a consultant to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. After moving to Boston, he was for many years a clinical instructor in Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and a member of the Psychology staff at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center.