Robert jay lifton biography sample

Introduction: Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, colleague, author, role model and inspiration, has been a pre-eminent scholar of the psychology of totalitarian systems, both in state tyrannies and in small cults.

He explores the psychological mechanisms that enable ordinary people to become accomplices in carrying out atrocities, as well as the psychology of resistance. He is a co-author of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Professionals Assess a President (Bandy X Lee, Ed.).

Robert jay lifton biography sample

Recently, he agreed to be interviewed regarding the role of mental health professionals in our current political situation.

Part One:

JH: In recent work you have called on psychiatrists and others in the medical profession to step up and become witnessing professionals.

Can you explain what that means?

RJL: Yes, let me first say something about what I call the malignant normality that professionals must bear witness to. In connection with my study of Nazi doctors,