Talk:Robert Jay Lifton

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[edit] Thought reform/cults

I've made some drastic edits and cut most of this text:

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 phenomena 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 the American Psychological 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.

Basically this is a POV screed which bashes Lifton for having been cited by anti-cult groups, but shows little knowledge of his work. There are several big problems here: 1. This text entirely blurs the distinction between Lifton's theory of "thought reform" and the claims of anti-cult groups who have cited Lifton's work rather selectively. The latter are what the APA and ASA disavowed, and in fact Lifton himself has spoken against such misapplications of his work. 2. It is very misleading to mention Thought Reform without mentioning its conclusion, which was that such techniques generally failed in their grand ideological ambitions, managing only to coerce short-term behavior and/or produce general nervous breakdowns—which is what he claimed had happened to Patty Hearst. 3. The "Lifton has published many books..." sentence is also very misleading; Lifton's other books often make reference to "totalism" as a feature of authoritarian ideologies, but that has nothing to do with brainwashing or thought control; those are not the focus of his work.

I hope to return to the article soon and expand it to do more justice to the breadth of Lifton's writing. ←Hob 00:04, 2004 Dec 20 (UTC)

If you want to do justice to his work then erase the entire article.

His latest - Nazi Doctors - is pure bunk. History it ain't. Rehashed myths that make for a good movie script, fiction at best - no quotes, no research, ... but very saleable. Antecdotes can come from both sides - in WW2 buddies of severely wounded GIs left their friend where the German soldiers would take him to the "NAZI DOCTORS" to save his life. Document our atrocities before you take a flight of fancy - unless you are Wiki I guess.

The incoherent comment above speaks for itself - I'll just point out that this anonymous editor seems to think The Nazi Doctors is Lifton's "latest". It was written in 1986. ←Hob 01:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Psychohistory disambiguation

I spent quite a lot of time recently on the variant of psychohistory which has become associated with the name of Lloyd deMause. The article is now a merged version of two separate articles. A link to Robert Jay Lifton is included in the section titled "Notable psychohistorians". There is also a disambiguation at the top of the page for Isaac Asimov's use of the term: psychohistory (fictional).

At present, this article mentions the Wellfleet Group briefly. I did a Google search and found that more material is available. Would any of the previous contributors object if I reworked the "Influences" section to expand on the activities of the Wellfleet Psychohistory Group? It's two sentences at the moment. If there was more material about the group, the section could be renamed "The Wellfleet Psychohistory Group." -- Bookish 17:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)