Thomas J. Scheff (born 1929) is an American Professor, Emeritus, Department of Sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara.
[1] His fields of study are the emotional/relational world, mental illness, restorative justice, and collective violence.
He was advisor to California State Legislature on the writing of the Lanterman, Petris, Short Bill[clarification needed], Later adopted in all of the other states, regulating involuntary commitment of persons deemed mentally ill.[2] He has honorary doctorates from the University of Karlstad, Karlstad, Sweden (2003), and Copenhagen University, Denmark (2008), and he has held visiting appointments at Carleton University, Canada, Oslo U., Norway, Lund and Karlstad Universities, Sweden.
[3] His fields of research are social psychology, emotions, mental illness, restorative justice and collective violence.
One of his books, Emotions and the Social Bond, concerns part/whole, a unified approach to theory and method in the human sciences.