Kurt Goldstein

Kurt Goldstein (November 6, 1878 – September 19, 1965) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist who created a holistic theory of the organism.

Educated in medicine, Goldstein studied under Carl Wernicke and Ludwig Edinger where he focused on neurology and psychiatry.

This focused on patients with psychological disorders, particularly cases of schizophrenia and war trauma, and the ability of their bodies to readjust to substantial losses in central control.

[3] His holistic approach to the human organism produced the principle of self actualization, defined as the driving force that maximizes and determines the path of an individual.

He felt that a good education was the most proper way to prepare for life, and because of this, ensured that all his sons obtained university degrees.

[5] After a short period working at that business, Goldstein's father reluctantly allowed him to enroll at Breslau University.

Goldstein stayed there for only one semester before he transferred to the University of Heidelberg where he was able to pursue the study of Neo-Kantian philosophy and literature where he was introduced to the concepts of Carl Wernicke.

From 1917 to 1927, Goldstein yielded conceptual aspects of neurological conditions including tonus disturbances, agnosia, aphasia, apraxia, and general behavioral changes after a brain injury.

[10] Later that year, Goldstein accepted a position at the University of Berlin[5] and the director of neurology at Berlin-Moabit General Hospital.

[NAS1]  He published material on the roles of the nurse, physician and social worker for inpatient care of brain-injured patients.

For the next year Goldstein lived in Amsterdam, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, and wrote his classic The Organism.

Rather than looking at certain phenomena, such as the patellar reflex, as singular events, Goldstein tried to understand them as components of a holistic organism.

While hitting the kneecap with a rubber hammer or testing the pupillary response might seem to be a simple example of an isolated reflex, Goldstein argued that a holistic approach would be necessary to fully understand what the body is experiencing.

[4] In an excerpt from The Organism, he writes: If, in examining a man's pupillary reflex, we obtain a relatively constant contraction of the iris, this is possible only because the individual, so to speak, surrenders his eye to us and completely foregoes the usual act of seeing, i.e. the visual prehension of some environmental feature.

But it certainly is not true that the same light intensity will produce the same contraction when it affects the organ in isolation (as in the reflex examination), and when it acts upon the eye of the person who deliberately regards an objects.

While a smoothly propelled bicycle may signify accomplishment, looking at the coordinated movements of the learner and the smile that results is also another sign.

[3] Goldstein developed an approach whereby a situation or phenomenon is analyzed holistically, rather than simply looking at an isolated event.

His work lead him to conclude that although physical areas of the brain, such as the frontal lobes and the subcortical ganglia, may be damaged, psychological trauma was a more pressing concern.

At the time, physicians thought soldiers were merely faking symptoms in order to receive a pension after the war and there was little research to prove otherwise.

[17] Goldstein and his team attempted to look at this from a holistic perspective by theorizing that all neural networks were interconnected and thus, connected to the outside world.