Lifton, Betty Jean, 19..-....

Writer, adoptee, and adoption-reform advocate Betty Jean Lifton, was born June 11, 1926, in Staten Island, New York. Named Blanche Rosenblatt by her birth mother, Rae Rosenblatt, Lifton was renamed Betty Jean by her adoptive parents, Oscar and Hilda Kirschner. She received a BA in English from Barnard College in 1948 and a PhD in counseling psychology from the Union Institute in the 1990s. In 1952, she married Robert Jay Lifton, a writer and psychiatrist; they had two children, Kenneth and Natasha.

Lifton was the author of the nonfiction books, Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter (1975), Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience (1979), Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness (1994), and The King of Children: The Life and Death of Janusz Korczak (1997). She also wrote over twenty books for children including I Am Still Me (1981), about a teenage girl who realizes she's adopted while completing a homework assignment; and stories influenced by Japanese folktales and her travels to Japan, including, Kap the Kappa (1960), The Dwarf Pine Tree (1963), The One-Legged Ghost (1968), Return to Hiroshima (1970), and A Place Called Hiroshima (1985). After receiving her PhD, Lifton worked as a psychological counselor, with a practice centered on adoptees and their families. She died November 19, 2010, in Boston, Massachusetts, from complications of pneumonia.