Robert Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton (born May 16, 1926) is a prominent American psychiatrist and author. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Harold A. (a businessman) and Ciel (Roth) Lifton. He married Betty Jean Kirschner (a writer) on March 1, 1952 and had three children: Kenneth Jay, Karen, and Natasha.
Using the techniques of psychohistory, in a manner similar to Erik Erikson, Lifton has written several books throughout his career in which he studies how human beings react to extreme situations, and how they come to terms with mortality. He's studied figures such as the survivors of Hiroshima, doctors in Nazi concentration camps, and the American veterans of the Vietnam War.
His 1961 book, Thought Reform introduced theories of "brainwashing" and "mind control", which he later advocated in court in the capacity of an expert witness in the 1976 trial of Patty Hearst. The theories, however, failed to become mainline science: American Psychologists Association (APA) dismissed them in 1987, American Sociologists Association officially supported the decision. Currently, "brainwashing" and "mind control" theories are considered science fiction by professional psychologists and sociologists. U.S. Courts repeatedly refused to accept references to "brainwashing" and "thought control" as phenomenae existing in reality.
The theories are however widely used by anti-cult activists. Lifton has published many books in which he applied these theories to goverments, new religious movements and terrorist groups.
In 2002 an attempt was made again to make American Psychologists Association form a panel to re-evaluate the theories. References to terrorism and religious fanaticism were made by anti-cult activists to emphasize the importance of the theories and attract support from mainline scholars. It is unknown whether the attempt was successful.
WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR
- Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China, Norton (New York City), 1961.
- Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima, Random House (New York City), 1968.
- Revolutionary Immortality: Mao Tse-Tung and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Random House, 1968.
- Birds, Words, and Birds (cartoons), Random House, 1969.
- History and Human Survival: Essays on the Young and the Old, Survivors and the Dead, Peace and War, and on Contemporary Psychohistory, Random House, 1970.
- Boundaries, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (Toronto), 1969, published as Boundaries: Psychological Man in Revolution, Random House, 1970.
- Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans--Neither Victims nor Executioners, Simon & Schuster (New York City), 1973.
- (With Eric Olson) Living and Dying, Praeger, 1974.
- The Life of the Self: Toward a New Psychology, Simon & Schuster, 1976.
- Psychobirds, Countryman Press, 1978.
- (With Shuichi Kato and Michael Reich) Six Lives/Six Deaths: Portraits from Modern Japan (originally published in Japanese as Nihonjin no shiseikan, 1977), Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1979.
- The Broken Connection: On Death and the Continuity of Life, Simon & Schuster, 1979.
- (With Richard A. Falk) Indefensible Weapons: The Political and Psychological Case against Nuclearism, Basic Books (New York City), 1982.
- The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, Basic Books, 1986.
- The Future of Immortality and Other Essays for a Nuclear Age, Basic Books, 1987.
- (With Eric Markusen) The Genocidal Mentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat, Basic Books, 1990.
- The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation, Basic Books, 1993.
- (With Greg Mitchell) Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial, Putnam's (New York City), 1995.
- (Co-author) Who Owns Death? Capital Punishment, the American Conscience, and the End of Executions, Morrow, 2000.
(AS EDITOR)
- The Woman in America, Houghton (Boston), 1965.
- America and the Asian Revolutions, Trans-Action Books, 1970, second edition, 1973.
- (With Falk and Gabriel Kolko) Crimes of War: A Legal, Political-Documentary, and Psychological Inquiry into the Responsibilities of Leaders, Citizens, and Soldiers for Criminal Acts of War, Random House, 1971.
- (With Olson) Exlorations in Psychohistory: The Wellfleet Papers, Simon & Schuster, 1975.
- (With Eric Chivian, Susanna Chivian, and John E. Mack) Last Aid: The Medical Dimensions of Nuclear War, W. H. Freeman, 1982.
- (With Nicholas Humphrey) In a Dark Time: Images for Survival, Harvard University Press, 1984.
