22
ROBERT JAY LIFTON
tion in interview method. For more than fifteen years I have found
myself struggling with modifications of the psychiatric and psy–
choanalytic interview, in order to approach and understand various
kinds of people who have not sought therapeutic help but, on the
contrary, have been sought out by me. And sought out not because
of any form of psychological disturbance as such, but because of
particular experiences they have undergone - experiences which
may indeed be (and usually have been) disturbing, but which both
they and I see as having wider significance than any individual
incapacities incurred, psychological or otherwise. I found myself
developing a much freer interview style than that I was taught in
my professional training.
It
remains probing, encouraging the widest
range of associations, and includes detailed life histories and explora–
tions of dreams. But
it
focuses upon the specific situation responsible
for bringing the two of us (most of the interviews have been individ–
ual ones) together, and takes the form of something close
to
an
open dialogue emerging from that situation.
The relationship we develop is neither that of doctor and pa–
tient nor of ordinary friends, though at moments it can seem to
resemble either. It is more one of shared exploration - mostly of
the world of the person sought out, but including a great deal of
give-and-take, and more than a little discussion of my own attitudes
and interests.
1
It requires, in other words, a combination of humane
spontaneity and professional discipline. Needless to say, one's way of
combining the two is always idiosyncratic, and always less than ideal.
The method I am describing is partly empirical (in its stress
upon specific data from interviews) ; partly phenomenological, or,
1 We have no good term for the person in this situation. The traditional
one, "research subject," seems increasingly unsatisfactory to me because it
suggests someone merely "studied" or "investigated" in a more or less passive
way. "Patient" is entirely inappropriate, and "client" is not much better.
"His–
torical actor" and "pivotal person" come closer, but they have their own am–
biguities. I believe there will be a number of new terms developed, and also
new methods of investigation and interview (we already depend, to a mUCR
greater extent than my discussion indicates, upon group interviews and a host of
other informal approaches) which capture, in
active ways,
lived history. I would
go so far as to say that progress
in
psychohistory depends upon these innova–
tions in method. Once developed in the study of contemporary matters
JUch
innovations could also become applicable to the study of the past, though
mainly in relationship to the search for and interpretation of various kinds of
records and documents.
