The Organism (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this age of computer-based, reductionist models of the human mind, Goldstein's (1878-1965) pioneering statement on holistic health, written in 1934 in Holland, where he emigrated to escape Nazi Germany, is welcome, especially since the U.S. edition has been out of print for decades. An influential German neurologist and psychologist who taught and practiced medicine in the U.S., where he settled the following year, Goldstein stresses the seamless activity of the whole organism, arguing that there is no independent realm of "body" or "mind." Disease, in his system, is an expression of the disturbed relationship between an organism and its environment; recovery is a newly achieved adaptation, not merely a return to a previous equilibrium. Using illustrative material ranging from brain-damaged soldiers to repression of childhood memories, this dense, philosophically informed study reevaluates such concepts as anxiety, dread, instinct, drives, the unconscious and the nature of physical and mental illness.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

with an introduction by Oliver Sacks

Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) was already an established neuropsychologist when he emigrated from Germany to the United States in the 1930s. This book, his magnum opus and widely regarded as a modern classic in psychology and biology, grew out of his dissatisfaction with traditional natural science techniques for analyzing living beings. It offers a broad introduction to the sources and range of application of the "holistic" or "organismic" research program that has since become a standard part of biological thought.

In the course of his studies of brain-damaged soldiers during World War I, Goldstein became aware of the inability of contemporary biology and medicine to explain both the impact of such injuries and the astonishing adjustments that patients made to them. He began to challenge atomistic approaches that dealt with "localized" symptoms, insisting instead that an organisim must be analyzed in terms of the totality of its behavior and interaction with its surrounding milieu.

Goldstein was especially concerned with the breakdown of organization and the failure of central controls that take place in catastrophic responses to situations such as physical or mental illness. But he was equally attuned to the amazing powers of the organism to readjust to such catastrophic losses, if only by withdrawal to a more limited range which it could manage by a redistribution of its reduced energies, thus reclaiming as much wholeness as new circumstances allowed.

Goldstein's theses in The Organism have had an important impact on philosophical and psychological thought throughout this century, as can be seen in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Canguilhem, Ernst Cassirer, and Ludwig Binswanger. In the words of Oliver Sacks: "All that Goldstein observed and brooded over -- levels of organization of the nervous system, health, disease, adaptation, reconstruction -- has once again come to the fore, with the advent of new conceptual and technical tools to approach these. The global theory that Goldstein and Lashley and the Gestaltists sought may now have emerged in Edelman's theory of neural Darwinism and his concept of the brain as a sort of society, in which every part is dynamically connected with every other." Zone Books

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 422 pages
• Publisher: Zone Books (April 19, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0942299965
• ISBN-13: 978-0942299960
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,094,082 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An essential read for any practising scientist., October 15, 2002

By	Frank Bierbrauer (Cardiff, Wales, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Organism (Paperback)

Kurt Goldstein was a highly experienced and respected neurologist in the earlier years of the twentieth century who after a lifetime of experince with patients of all walks of life, but especially brain damaged soldiers of World War I, came to the conclusion that the working of the human body is far more than just independently functioning mechanisms which make a kind of slapdash whole from the sum of these "parts".

Goldstein explores many kinds of brain disorders he met along the way involving damage to the cortex and other parts of the brain often associated with structures which control certain aspects of behaviour such as reflex actions. Goldstein analyses in great detail and without prejudice each particular case describing the standard approaches on the subject and what he actually observes directly rather than just using the theory to define what is happening. Through this method he is able to obtain a far richer description of the neurological aspects of man than is usually given. He does not speculate arbitrarily but rather convinces by objective analysis. This is a hardnosed scientific approach although he still gives himself time to consider the wholeness of the body and its repair and "coming to terms" with its situation. In the last chapters he discusses approaches to the wholeness of the body and how important and relevant they are to a truer experience of the world as such. He nonetheless maintains a strong contact throughout with real patients never once releasing his touch to reality.

An essential read for any practising scientist who wants to understand.