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. 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. Later, his principle influenced Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. He was the co-editor of Journal of Humanistic Psychology.

As a child, Goldstein was described as being shy, quiet, and bookish amidst his bustling surroundings. His love of reading earned him the nickname of "Professor" at the public school he attended in Kattowitz. The Goldstein family relocated to the metropolitan city of Breslau after a few years, where Goldstein attended the Humanistische Gymnasium. After graduation, Goldstein planned to study philosophy at the university level. His father did not approve of this venture, as he considered it an unprofitable art, and sent Goldstein to work at a relative's business.

In 1903, Ludwig Edinger invited Goldstein to the Senckebergisches Neurologisches Institut at the University of Frankfurt where he became Edinger's assistant (Oct 1903 – Sept 1904). Edinger became one of the most influential figures in Goldstein's career. After a stint in Königsberg, Goldstein returned to work with Edinger in 1914 at the Neurological Institute in Frankfurt as first assistant. Their goal was to investigate comparative neuroanatomy and neuropathology. After Edinger's death in 1918, Goldstein became acting director of the Neurological Institute. 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. In July 1922, he was appointed associate professor for Neurology and director of the Neurological Institute. In 1923, he assumed the role of professor of neurology.

In 1926, Fritz Perls became Goldstein's assistant for a year. Perls married Laura Posner in 1930. They would go on to become the co-developers of Gestalt therapy. Goldstein's research and theory had a considerable influence on the formation of this new psychotherapy. Later that year, Goldstein accepted a position at the University of Berlin Goldstein served as the director of the clinic until 1930. It was there that he also developed his theory of brain-mind relationships. He applied the figure-ground principle from perception to the whole organism. In this application, the whole organism existed as the ground for the individual stimulus that formed the figure. This idea became an early criticism of the simple behavioral stimulus-response-theory. Goldstein, was arrested and imprisoned in a basement. After a week, he was released on the condition that he would agree to leave the country immediately and never return. For the next year, Goldstein lived in Amsterdam, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, and wrote his classic The Organism. He worked at the Psychiatric Institute in New York City, Montefiore Hospital as attending neurologist and made connections with Columbia University in New York. Between 1940 and 1945, Goldstein worked at the Tufts Medical School in Boston as the clinical professor of neurology. In 1946, he returned to New York City, where he established a private practice. Self-actualization was an essential component to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but differed from Goldstein's original concept. Maslow described self-actualization as realizing one's full potential and seeking personal growth. Maslow felt that self-actualization would only be met if all fundamental needs had been satisfied first.

Holistic approach Goldstein's holistic approach is described in his book 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. Although he believed it was possible that reflexes could exist by themselves, Goldstein's approach postulated that they always exist in concurrence with another process in the body. 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. 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. Of course, it is true that in real vision, the diameter of the pupil changes according to the amount of light on the seen object. 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 objects. Although it is not easy to prove this experimentally, one only needs to contrast the pupillary reaction of a man looking interestedly at a brightly illuminated object with the reaction of an eye which has been exposed "in isolation," to the same light intensity. The difference in pupillary reaction is immediately manifest. His conclusions on schizophrenia emphasized the disease as a protective mechanism against anxiety rather than an organic defect. 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. Therefore, any trauma one receives from the war would directly impact the neural networks.

Goldstein later attempted to rehabilitate patients suffering from war trauma. At the time, suffering veterans were placed in penitentiaries and asylums. Goldstein attempted to bring back the normal function of patients by introducing multidisciplinary care teams consisting of medical, orthopedic, physiological, and psychological personnel, as well as a school facility to provide workshops for patients. His efforts resulted in the successful rehabilitation of many soldiers: 73% of patients were able to return to their old jobs while only 10% remained hospitalized.

Publications Books/monographs Goldstein, Kurt. (1908). Zur Lehre von der motorischen Apraxie. J. fur Psychol. und Neurol., XI., 169–187, 270–283. Goldstein, Kurt. (1934). Der Aufbau des Organismus. Einführung in die Biologie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Erfahrungen am kranken Menschen. Den Haag, Nijhoff, 1934. Goldstein, Kurt. (1939). The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived from Pathological Data in Man. New York: American Book Company. Goldstein, Kurt. (1940). Human Nature in the Light of Psychopathology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Goldstein, Kurt; Scheerer, Martin.(1941): Abstract and Concrete Behavior: An Experimental Study With Special Tests. In: Psychological Monographs, ed. by John F. Dashell, Vol. 53/1941, No. 2 (whole No. 239), p. 1-151. Goldstein, Kurt. (1942) After effects of brain injuries in war. New York: Grune & Stratton. Goldstein, Kurt., Hanfmann, E., Rickers-Ovsiankina (1944). Case Lanuti: Extreme Concretization of Behavior Due to Damage of the Brain Cortex. In: Psychological Monographs, ed. by John F. Dashell, Vol. 57/1944, No. 4 (whole No. 264), p. 1-72. Goldstein, Kurt., Scheerer, M., Rothmann, E. (1945). A Case of "Idiot Savant": An Experimental Study of Personality Organization. In: Psychological Monographs, ed. by John F. Dashell, Vol. 58/1945, No. 4 (whole No. 269), p. 1-63. Goldstein, Kurt. (1948). Language and Language Disturbances: Aphasic Symptom Complexes and Their Significance for Medicine and Theory of Language. New York: Grune & Stratton. Goldstein, Kurt. (1967). Selected writings. ed., Aron Gurwitsch, Else M. Goldstein.