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Despite the reserve and reluctance on the part of some present-day American psychoanalysts, it is necessary for us to step out of the dyadic relationship for the purpose of studying certain phenomena. The effects of great holocausts, long ignored by man, are among those multidimensional sequences which must be scrutinized by multiple approaches. When Lifton studies the aftermaths of the Hiroshima bomb disaster he uses his psychoanalytic knowledge and point of view in his interpretation of the material, whether obtained in interviews or from other sources.
The immensity and complexity of survivor reactions necessitated that Lifton pay attention to a variety of sources, such as the 'A-bomb literature': the government and medical reports and actions in the care and rehabilitation of the victims; the interaction of the Japanese and their Hibakusha ('explosion affected') countrymen. The survivor's life style, family, and community structure all tell part of the story of the handling of the psychological after-effects of the disaster. Lifton, in searching out the ways in which that traumatic situation was handled, shows that with the explosion of the atomic bomb a psychologically potentially overwhelming and lethal situation was created. Those who successfully negotiated the threatened breakdown of their stimulus barriers by a destructive situation of this magnitude revealed a very special and characteristic reaction. To ward off becoming overwhelmed, the Hibakusha functioned automatically—as Lifton puts it, they achieved a 'psychological closing-off' by constricting their emotional responses and attention to the absolute necessities for survival. However, this defensive response