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Kurt Goldstein and Recovery of Function

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Brain Injury and Recovery

Abstract

In the first half of this century, Kurt Goldstein developed a holistic or organismic model of cerebral functioning that has important implications for conceptions of recovery. The term “holistic” is frequently used rather casually, so it needs some clarification. It refers to the fundamental assumption that it is impossible to consider a biological phenomenon in isolation; it must be considered in the context of the biological system, the environment, and the history of the whole organism. For Goldstein, holism was a specific response to the epistemological problem of what one can usefully discover about biology through the process of “taking apart” the organism to generate “a multitude of isolated facts” (Goldstein, 1939, p. 7). Goldstein acknowledged that analysis through isolation is the necessary first step in the scientific study of living organisms, but dissatisfaction with the usefulness of the results of this procedure for medical practice led him to his holistic approach (Goldstein, 1939, p. 8; 1942, p. 11). The dangers of drawing unwarranted conclusions based on reductionistic approaches, analysis of phenomena in isolation, or “decomposition” were also emphasized by other neurologists of the time, notably Henry Head (1926).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 47405, USA

    Gabriel P. Frommer

  2. University of Michigan NHR Project, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48105, USA

    Aaron Smith

Authors
  1. Gabriel P. Frommer
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  2. Aaron Smith
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department and Neural Sciences Program, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, 63130, USA

    Stanley Finger

  2. The Brain Research Laboratory, Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27695-7801, USA

    T. E. Levere

  3. Programs in Occupational Therapy and Neural Sciences, Departments of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Preventive Medicine, and Psychology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, 63110, USA

    C. Robert Almli

  4. Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, 07102, USA

    Donald G. Stein (Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Provost for Research) (Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Provost for Research)

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© 1988 Plenum Press, New York

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Frommer, G.P., Smith, A. (1988). Kurt Goldstein and Recovery of Function. In: Finger, S., Levere, T.E., Almli, C.R., Stein, D.G. (eds) Brain Injury and Recovery. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0941-3_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0941-3_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-8256-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-0941-3

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