Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Liftonis an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform. He was an early proponent of the techniques of psychohistory...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth16 May 1926
CountryUnited States of America
american-psychologist chose create found helped historical people study
What I found was when I started my first study, and then in subsequent studies, is here you have people under some kind of duress, or I chose to study them because they represented some kind of historical event, as it impacted on them or as they helped to create it.
american-psychologist attending city college father particular society
My father in particular was a progressive person, a person who made his way in this society by attending the City College of New York.
american-psychologist bombarded carry images influences whatever
That is, we are bombarded by all kinds of images and influences and we have to fend some of them off if we're to take in any of them, or to carry through just our ordinary day's work, or really deepen whatever we have to do or say.
american-psychologist struggled studies together tried uncertain
I struggled with each of these studies and I was uncertain about what they meant, and often confused, and then I tried to put together what I was seeing.
american-psychologist doctors frightened might
Sometimes it's said that psychiatrists are doctors who are frightened by the sight of blood. I might have fallen into that category.
american-psychologist astounded concerns nobody nuclear studied
It was because of my deep concerns about nuclear weapons that I went to Hiroshima. And then I was astounded in Hiroshima to find that nobody had really studied it.
american-psychologist both early interest medicine mind somewhat vague
And so I had an early but somewhat vague interest in both medicine and in what was to become, in my mind and in my work, psychiatry.
new-york war doctors
When I was still in my psychiatric residency training in New York City, I was subjected to the doctor draft of that time, during the early fifties, at the time of the Korean War.
world might weapons
Every adult in the world has some sense that he or she might be obliterated at any time by these weapons that we have created.
believe evil challenges
David Frankfurter's valuable, well-written study takes us to the far reaches of demonology. In documenting the harm done by labeling others evil, he poses a challenge to those of us who believe, however regretfully, in the necessity of the concept.
war vietnam veteran
I learned a lot from Vietnam veterans, especially as some of them turned against their own war.
doctors sight blood
Sometimes its said that psychiatrists are doctors who are frightened by the sight of blood. I might have fallen into that category.
real years people
And I managed to arrange to get some research support and to stay in Hong Kong for another year and a half, interviewing people coming out of China, both Westerners and Chinese. And that was my first real research study on thought reform or so-called brainwashing.
writing heavy psychoanalytic
And I was troubled by the heavy-handed prose of so much psychoanalytic writing, which seemed drowned in its own concepts.