Word: lifton
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Daniel Switkes is only one dissenting voice among some 300 psychiatrists now serving in the Army. But he is by no means alone. Yale's Robert Jay Lifton, a research professor of psychiatry and a former Air Force psychiatrist in Korea, says: "I think that when a psychiatrist represents any institution, that in itself creates problems. The psychiatrist has some need to further the interests of the institution, possibly at the expense of the best interests of the patient...
When the institution is war, says Lifton, psychiatry may be forced to turn against itself. To a degree, this is true of all wars, but it is excruciatingly true of the Viet Nam War. If the combat veteran suffers anxiety, guilt or confusion over his role, the psychotherapist should, ideally, help the G.I. examine his actions and emotions more closely and feel them more acutely. "But if the psychiatrist were to do so," Lifton says, "most G.I.s in Viet Nam whom he treated would refuse to continue fighting." Hence, as Emory University Psychiatrist Peter Bourne has said with conviction, "Military...