Book review of Kurt Goldstein

Kurt Goldstein:
THE ORGANISM: A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO BIOLOGY (American Book, 1939)

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German neurologist Goldstein's classical work still stands as a fundamental challenge to the dogmas of neurology and psycholody. Kurt Goldstein viewed of the organism as a system that has to struggle to cope with the challenges of the environment and of its own body.
The organism cannot be divided into "organs" and far less into "mind" and "body", because it is the whole that reacts to the environment. Nothing is independent within the organism. The organism is a whole.
"Disease" is a manifestation of a change of state between a the organism and its environment. Healing does not come through "repair" but through adaptation. The organism cannot simply return to the state preceding the event that changed it, but has to adapt to the conditions that caused the new state.
In particular, a local sympton is not meaningful to understand a "disease", and the organism's behavior during a disease is hardly explained as a response to that specific sympton. For example, a patient's body will often undergo mass-scale adjustments. Goldstein emphasizes the ability of organisms to adjust to catastrophic breakdowns of their most vital (mental or physical) functions. The organism's reaction is often a redistribution of its (mental or physical) faculties.

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