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Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton, is Lecturer in Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Psychology at The City University of New York.

He has written books and papers on such subjects as Nazi doctors (their killing in the name of healing) and genocide; nuclear weapons and their impact on death symbolism; Hiroshima survivors; Chinese thought reform and the Chinese Cultural Revolution; psychological trends in contemporary men and women; and the Vietnam War experience and "atrocity-producing situations." 

Recent work includes medical complicity in torture in connection with the war on Iraq and a comparative study of nuclear and climate threats.  He has developed a general psychological perspective around the paradigm of death and the continuity of life, with emphasis on symbolization and the “formative process,” and on the malleability of the contemporary or “protean” self. 

Among his books are: Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (which won a National Book Award); The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide; Home from the War: Learning from Vietnam Veterans; and most recently, Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir, and The Climate Swerve: Reflections on Mind, Hope, and Survival.