Camaron J. Thomas

Camaron J Thomas was born in Buffalo, New York and studied criminal justice, and public administration at Syracuse University's Maxwell School. She spent 13+ years in the Governor's Budget Division where she co-chaired the general services Futures Commission, and managed a multi-agency work group which re-codified the state's 100 year old procurement law. She then designed and directed NYS' first statewide office for Technology, predicated on inter-agency promotion and best practices.

Upon leaving State service, Camaron pursued Ayurveda and Yoga, and became a certified Yoga instructor and Ayurvedic practitioner. She studied meditation under Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. In an effort to bridge her two areas of interest, Ms. Thomas trained in facilitative mediation through Woodbury College and later in Transformative Mediation under Baruch Bush. Her mediation work focused on high conflict cases, particular in the family court area.

Throughout her career, Camaron has been interested in how people change and how others help people change. This was reflected in her PhD from Westbrook University; in her first book, Managers Part of the Problem? (1999), which advocated group-based organizational change; and her second and third books, People Skills for Tough Times (2008) and Beyond Help (2011)(both available through the author), which considered increasingly less prescriptive ways of helping others.

In 2006, Camaron undertook what became a ten-year study of neuroscience and human nature. She sought to understand why, at the deepest level, we behave as we do; why we persist in ways that have long-since failed; why we sometimes re-act, sometimes explode, and other times resonate with one another.

Her efforts have culminated in an upcoming book, The Wisdom of the Brain -- Neuroscience for Helping Professionals, which presents in an easy-to-read format, an understanding of how the brain works; how we think and create meaning; how the brain is formed through relationships; what we learn, remember, and why; the impact and extend of unconditional influences; and how the brain manages social cognition.

Most importantly, the book draws wisdom from the science -- such as, the brain constructs both our perception and experience of reality; hardwired doesn't mean immutable, it means it's harder to change; we cannot really know the experience of another; and we each carry with us a set of unconscious assumptions about living that shapes our daily experience. Blending neuroscience, psychology, social cognition, and spirituality, The Wisdom of the Brain lends new insight into human nature and what it means to help.