Robert Jay Lifton (born May 16, 1926) is an American

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence, and for his theory of thought reform. He was an early proponent of the techniques of

psychohistory Psychohistory is a social science that analyzes human behavior by combining psychology, history, and other social sciences, while also being an amalgam of psychology, history, and related social sciences and the humanities. Its proponents claim to ...

Biography

Lifton was born in 1926, in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York, the son of businessman Harold A. Lifton, and Ciel Lifton née Roth. In 1942, he enrolled at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

at the age of 16. He was admitted to

New York Medical College New York Medical College (NYMC or New York Med) is a Private university, private medical school in Valhalla, New York. Founded in 1860, it is a member of the Touro University System. NYMC offers advanced degrees through its three schools: the ...

in 1944, graduating in 1948. He interned at the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn in 1948–49. He did his psychiatric residence training at the Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, in 1949–51. From 1951 to 1953, Lifton served as an

Air Force An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...

psychiatrist in Japan and Korea, to which he later attributed his interest in war and politics. He has since worked as a teacher and researcher at the Washington School of Psychiatry,

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, and the

John Jay College of Criminal Justice The John Jay College of Criminal Justice (John Jay) is a public college focused on criminal justice and located in New York City. It is a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY). John Jay was founded as the only liberal arts col ...

, where he helped to found the Center for the Study of Human Violence. He married the children's writer Betty Jean Kirschner in 1952, and they had two children. She died in Boston on November 19, 2010, from complications of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

. Lifton has said that

cartooning A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the literar ...

is his

avocation An avocation is an activity that someone engages in as a hobby outside their main occupation. There are many examples of people whose professions were the ways that they made their livings, but for whom their activities outside their workplaces w ...

; he has published two books of humorous cartoons about

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s. He is a member of

Collegium International International Ethical, Scientific and Political Collegium, also called Collegium International, is a high-level group created in 2002. Origin The International Ethical, Political and Scientific Collegium is committed, according to its founders, "to ...

, an organization of leaders with political, scientific, and ethical expertise whose goal is to provide new approaches in overcoming the obstacles in the way of a peaceful, socially just and an economically sustainable world. In 2012, Lifton was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from

The New School The New School is a Private university, private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for p ...

Wellfleet Psychohistory Group

During the 1960s, Lifton, together with his mentor

Erik Erikson Erik Homburger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 – 12 May 1994) was a German-American child psychoanalyst and visual artist known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity crisis. ...

and historian Bruce Mazlish of

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

, formed a group to apply psychology and psychoanalysis to the study of history. Meetings were held at Lifton's home in

Wellfleet, Massachusetts Wellfleet is a New England town, town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, and is located halfway between the "tip" and "elbow" of Cape Cod. The town had a population of 3,566 at the 2020 United ...

. The Wellfleet Psychohistory Group, as it became known, focused mainly on psychological motivations for war, terrorism, and genocide in recent history. In 1965, they received sponsorship from the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

to establish psychohistory as a separate field of study. A collection of research papers by the group was published in 1975: ''Explorations in Psychohistory: The Wellfleet Papers'' (see Bibliography; Lifton as editor). Lifton's work in this field was deeply influenced by Erikson's studies of

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

and other political figures, as well as by

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...

's concern with the mass social effects of deep-seated drives, particularly attitudes toward death. The attendees include Erikson, Lifton, and Kenneth Keniston at the ‘continuous core’ of annual meetings, along with Bruce Mazlish, Norman Birnbaum, Alexander and Margaret Mitscherlich, Margaret Brennen, Peter Brooks, Robert Coles, Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, Charles Strozier, Philip Rieff, Kai Erikson, Betty Jean Lifton, Norman Mailer, Howard Zinn, Frederick Wyatt, Noam Chomsky, Richard Sennett, Peter Gay, Ashis Nandy, Richard Goodwin, Harvey Cox, Frank Manuel, Leo Marx, Jonathan Schell, Raoul Hilberg, Sudhir Kakar, David Dellinger, Dan Berrigan, Wendy Doniger, Cathy Caruth, David Riesman, Steve Marcus, Richard Barnet, Daniel Ellsberg, Richard Falk, Hillel Levine, Aaron Roland and many others until it closed shop in 2015.

Studies of thought reform

Beginning in 1953, Lifton interviewed American servicemen who had been

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

(POWs) during the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

, in addition to priests and students, or teachers who had been held in prison in China after 1951. In addition to interviews with 25 Americans and Europeans, Lifton interviewed 15 Chinese who had fled after having been subjected to

indoctrination Indoctrination is the process of inculcating (teaching by repeated instruction) a person or people into an ideology, often avoiding critical analysis. It can refer to a general process of socialization. The term often implies forms of brainwas ...

in Chinese universities. Lifton's 1961 book, '' Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China'', based on this research, was a study of coercive techniques used in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. He described this process as "thought reform" or "

brainwashing Brainwashing is the controversial idea that the human mind can be altered or controlled against a person's will by manipulative psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subject's ability to think critically or independently ...

", though he preferred the former term. The term " thought-terminating cliché" was popularized in this book. Lifton found that after the POWs returned to the United States, their thinking soon returned to normal, contrary to the popular image of "brainwashing" as resulting in permanent changes. A 1989 reprint edition was published by

University of North Carolina Press The University of North Carolina Press (or UNC Press), founded in 1922, is a not-for-profit university press associated with the University of North Carolina. It was the first university press founded in the southern United States. It is a mem ...

Studies of war and atrocity survivors

Several of his books featured mental adaptations that people made in extreme wartime environments: ''Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima'' (1967), ''Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans—Neither Victims nor Executioners'' (1973), and '' The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide'' (1986). Regarding Hiroshima and Vietnam survivors or Nazi perpetrators, Lifton believed that the psychic fragmentation suffered by his subjects was an extreme form of the pathologies that arise in peacetime life due to the pressures and fears of modern society. His studies of the behavior of people who had committed

war crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

s both individually and in groups, concluded that while human nature is not innately cruel and only rare sociopaths can participate in atrocities without suffering lasting emotional harm, such crimes do not require any unusual degree of personal evil or mental illness. He says that they are nearly sure to happen given certain conditions (either accidental or deliberately arranged), which Lifton called "atrocity-producing situations". ''The Nazi Doctors'' was the first in-depth study of how medical professionals rationalized their participation in

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

, from the early stages of the T-4 Euthanasia Program to the

extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...

s. In the Hiroshima and Vietnam studies, Lifton also concluded that the sense of personal disintegration that many people experienced after witnessing death and destruction on a mass scale could ultimately lead to a new emotional resilience—but that without the proper support and counseling, most survivors would remain trapped in feelings of unreality and guilt. In her 2005 autobiography ''My Life So Far'',

Jane Fonda Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress and activist. Recognized as a film icon, Jane Fonda filmography, Fonda's work spans several genres and over six decades of film and television. She is the recipient of List of a ...

described Lifton's work with Vietnam veterans, along with that of fellow psychiatrists Leonard Neff, Chaim Shatan, and Sarah Haley, as "tireless and empathetic". In 1975, the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

adapted Lifton's book ''Death in Life'' as Episode 31 in Season 11 of their program

Horizon The horizon is the apparent curve that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This curve divides all viewing directions based on whethe ...

. The documentary, ''To Die, To Live, The Survivors of Hiroshima'', was written and directed by Robert Vas, and edited by Peter Goodchild. The program aired on August 6, 1975. In a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' review, John Leonard wrote, "I didn't want to watch a whole hour of it. ..I thought the subtleties of Dr. Lifton's book were obscured by a piling‐on of images intended, and guaranteed, to shock. " Lifton was one of the first organizers of therapeutic discussion groups on this subject in which mental health practitioners met with veterans face-to-face. He and Dr. Neff successfully lobbied for the inclusion of

post-traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that develops from experiencing a Psychological trauma, traumatic event, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, warfare and its associated traumas, natural disaster ...

in the

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (''DSM''; latest edition: ''DSM-5-TR'', published in March 2022) is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders using a com ...

(DSM). His book on Hiroshima survivors won the 1969

National Book Award The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...

in Science."National Book Awards – 1969"

National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established with the goal "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America." Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: ...

. Retrieved 2012-03-05.

Theories of totalism and the protean self

'' Totalism'', a word which he first used in ''Thought Reform'', is Lifton's term for the characteristics of ideological movements and organizations that desire total control over human behavior and thought. Lifton's usage differs from theories of

totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public s ...

, as it can be applied to the ideology of groups that do not wield governmental power. In Lifton's opinion, though such attempts always fail, they follow a common pattern and cause predictable types of psychological damage in individuals and societies. He finds two common motives in totalistic movements: the fear and denial of death, channeled into violence against scapegoat groups that are set up to represent a metaphorical threat to survival, and a reactionary fear of social change. In his later work, Lifton has focused on defining the type of change to which totalism is opposed, for which he coined the term ''the

protean In Greek mythology, Proteus ( ; ) is an early prophetic sea god or god of rivers and oceanic bodies of water, one of several deities whom Homer calls the " Old Man of the Sea" (''hálios gérôn''). Some who ascribe a specific domain to Pr ...

self''. In the book of the same title, he states that the development of a "fluid and many-sided personality" is a positive trend in modern societies. He said that mental health now requires "continuous exploration and personal experiment", which requires the growth of a purely relativist society that is willing to discard and diminish previously established cultures and traditions.

Critiques of modern war and terrorism

Following his work with Hiroshima survivors, Lifton became a vocal opponent of

nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission, fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion, fusion reactions (thermonuclear weap ...

, arguing that

nuclear strategy Nuclear strategy involves the development of military doctrine, doctrines and strategy, strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons. As a sub-branch of military strategy, nuclear strategy attempts to match nuclear weapons as means ...

and warfighting doctrine made even mass genocide banal and conceivable. While not a strict

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

, he has spoken against U.S. military actions in his lifetime, particularly the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

and

Iraq War The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...

, believing that they arose from irrational and aggressive aspects of American politics motivated by fear. In 1993, he said:

What's happening there n Bosniamerits the use of the word genocide. There is an effort to systematically destroy an entire group. It's even been conceptualized by
Serbian nationalist Serbian nationalism asserts that Serbs are a nation and promotes the cultural and political unity of Serbs. It is an ethnic nationalism, originally arising in the context of the general rise of nationalism in the Balkans under Ottoman rule, ...
s as so-called "ethnic cleansing." That term signifies mass killing, mass relocation, and that does constitute genocide.

Lifton regards

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

as an increasingly serious threat due to the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons and totalist ideologies. He has, however, criticized the Bush administration's " War on Terrorism" as a misguided and dangerous attempt to "destroy all vulnerability". His 1999 book, ''Destroying the World to Save It,'' described the apocalyptic terrorist sect

Aum Shinrikyo , better known by their former name , is a Japanese new religions, Japanese new religious movement and doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been respo ...

as a forerunner of "the new global terrorism".

Appearances

Lifton is featured in the 2003 documentary ''Flight From Death'', a film that investigates the relationship of human violence to fear of death, as related to subconscious influences. In 2006, Lifton appeared in a documentary on

cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...

s on the

History Channel History (formerly and commonly known as the History Channel) is an American pay television television broadcaster, network and the flagship channel of A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainme ...

, ''Decoding the Past'', along with fellow psychiatrist Peter A. Olsson. On May 18, 2008, Lifton delivered the commencement address at

Stonehill College Stonehill College is a private Catholic college in Easton, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded in 1948 by the Congregation of Holy Cross and is located on the original estate of Frederick Lothrop Ames Jr., with 29 buildings that compl ...

and discussed the apparent "Superpower Syndrome" experienced by the United States in the modern era.

Awards

* 1987:

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1943, is an American organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature. The goal of the council, as stated on its website, is "to promote the reading, writing and publishing of qual ...

in the Holocaust category for ''The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide''

Bibliography

* ; Reprinted, with a new preface: University of North Carolina Press, 1989
Online
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

). * ''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 Corporation (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, August 2000 (first edition 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. * ''Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism'', Owl Books, 2000. * (With Greg Mitchell) ''Who Owns Death? Capital Punishment, the American Conscience, and the End of Executions'', Morrow, 2000. * ''Superpower Syndrome: America's Apocalyptic Confrontation With the World'', Nation Books, 2003. * ''Witness to an extreme century: a memoir'', New York: Free Press: 2011. * * ''Surviving Our Catastrophes: Resilience and Renewal from Hiroshima to the COVID-19 Pandemic'', The New Press, 2023.

Lifton as editor

* (With Jacob D. Lindy) ''Beyond Invisible Walls: The Psychological Legacy of Soviet Trauma, East European Therapists and Their Patients'', Edwards Brothers (Lillington, NC), 2001. * ''The Woman in America'', Houghton (Boston), 1965. * ''America and the Asian Revolutions'', Trans-Action Books, 1970, second edition, 1973. * (With Richard A. 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 Eric Olson) ''Explorations 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 Nicholas Keynes Humphrey (born 27 March 1943) is an English neuropsychologist based in Cambridge, known for his work on the evolution of primate intelligence and consciousness. He studied mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda; he was t ...

) ''In a Dark Time: Images for Survival'', Harvard University Press, 1984.

References

External links

Articles
Evil, the Self, and Survival
: interview by Harry Kreisler, 1999
Doctors and Torture
Lifton discusses "atrocity-producing situations" in the case of the

Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse During the early stages of the Iraq War, members of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency were accused of a series of human rights violations and war crimes against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These abuses ...

, 2004
Superpower Syndrome articles
Robert Jay Lifton on superpower syndrome
TomDispatch
2006.

"Doctors and Death" Transcript,

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

, Jan. 4
Hiroshima and the World: The Wisdom of Survivors
article in the Chugoku Shimbun. Media
Talk on Apocalyptic Violence

Flight From Death
Robert Jay Lifton is interviewed in this documentary film.

about the aftermath of

September 11 terrorist attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, 2002
Religious and Ethnic Conflict Abroad

Talk of the Nation ''Talk of the Nation'' (''TOTN'') is an American talk radio program based in Washington D.C., produced by National Public Radio ( NPR) that was broadcast nationally from 2 to 4 p.m. Eastern Time. It focused on current events and controversial ...

, September 15, 1999
Doomsday Cults/Apocalyptic Groups

Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 a ...

, April 7, 2000 *
Interview with Steven Hassan
Freedom of Mind, July 13, 2011
Interview with Steven Hassan
Freedom of Mind, August, 2012
with Robert Jay Lifton
by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s, August 10, 2010 * ''To Die, To Live, The Survivors of Hiroshima'' (1975), hosted on the Internet Archive

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

Fresh Air ''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's hosts are Terry Gross and Tonya Mosl ...

interviews:
October 19, 2001

December 18, 2001

September 11, 2002

June 6, 2002

February 5, 2003

April 8, 2003
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lifton, Robert Jay 1926 births Living people Weill Cornell Medical College alumni Harvard University staff Military personnel from New York City John Jay College of Criminal Justice faculty American psychiatrists Mind control theorists Researchers of new religious movements and cults National Book Award winners 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American historians Jewish American historians Jewish American social scientists American psychology writers American anti-war activists American anti–nuclear weapons activists New York Medical College alumni 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers Historians from New York (state) 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American Jews