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The Mary T. and Frank L. Hoffman Family Foundation

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Thomas Johnson - Maine, USA

Thomas Johnson

Like most people in this country meat, dairy and eggs took "center stage" in most of my meals and vegetables and fruit were "side dishes" during my youth and early adulthood. In the mid to late 1990's as a family we moved from being vegetarian to becoming primarily vegans/ethical vegetarians. There were a number of contributing factors which influenced the shift. My consciousness was raised by the writings of Albert Schweitzer, Frances Moore Lappe, John Robbins, Kenneth Shapiro as well as discussions with good friend Tom Cushman and sister Judy Johnson. My wife Mary Beth was particularly moved by Francis Moore Lappe and made the case for shifting to a plant based diet because of the exceptional  benefits for the environment. If I could have been more receptive at that time we would have moved to a plant based diet even sooner! We treated our companion animals as family members—particularly the Labrador Retrievers—and they certainly influenced our thinking and decision making! I was raised as a Methodist and ironically I did not know that the founder of Methodism, John Wesley was an ethical vegetarian (read more about John Wesley's vegetarianism here). It was his physician who advised him to adopt a vegetarian diet and it was his Bishop who advised him not to preach vegetarianism! This was in the mid 1700's! I did not become aware of this until the late 1990's.


Biographical Notes

Thomas B. Johnson completed his graduate studies at Brown University (US Public Health Fellowship in social psychiatry and medical sociology), Harvard University (master's degree in counseling psychology), UC-Berkeley (doctor's degree in counseling psychology) and Duke University (doctoral internship in psychological services). He is a licensed psychologist, nationally certified school psychologist and a health psychologist and certified by the National Register of Health Services Psychologists. He has served as a faculty member at Bates College, Rutgers University and the University of Southern Maine. He was a contributing editor of the NASP Communique for 10 years as their editor for alternative and complimentary approaches to health and learning. He has been providing a full range of psychological services over many years including assessments, consultations, education, psychotherapy, supervision and research. He now serves as a consulting psychologist.

As a practitioner and academic, Thomas has focused on:

  • Relationships (i.e. as a family psychologist conducting marriage and family counseling and teaching courses in advanced counseling and marriage and family counseling)

  • Learning (teaching courses in educational psychology and conducting psychological evaluations to help identify special needs students and gifted and talented students)

  • Health (promoting personal health, public health and planetary health in his scientific research articles and providing psychotherapy as well as supervising masters and doctoral students)

Thomas's daughter Kate helped rescue thoroughbred race horses on the island of St. Thomas while she was studying archaeology. For this work, she was recognized as the Community Advocate of the Year "for saving horses from the horrors of being unwanted, neglected or abused" by the Humane Society of St. Thomas. Please see the following articles to learn more about the work of Kate and her friends:


Dr. Thomas Johnson's contributions to All-Creatures.org:



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