Lifton examines a set of psychological patterns contributing to a 'protean man' in contemporary society. He posits a break between man and his traditional symbols. A second contributing factor is the flooding of imagery produced by modern cultural influences. The protean style of self-process is characterized by an interminable series of experiments and explorations. The explorations require a symbolic fatherlessness. Protean man can embrace, modify, let go, and reembrace many idea systems and ideologies. With these experiments goes an inner sense of absurdity; death and the threat of the contemporary apocalypse are mocked. Patterns of anxiety, sense of unworthiness, and the ambivalence toward change itself are pointed out by Lifton.