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Karl KleistGerman psychiatrist, neurologist and pathopsychologist
Date of Birth: 31.01.1879
Country:  Germany |
Content:
Biography of Karl Kleist
Karl Kleist (31.1.1879, Mühlhausen, Alsace – 26.12.1960, Frankfurt am Main) was a German psychiatrist, neurologist, and pathopsychologist. He received his education at the universities of Strasbourg, Heidelberg, Berlin, and Munich, with his doctoral dissertation completed in 1902. Kleist worked as an assistant under E. Ziehen, C. Wernicke, and G. Anton at the clinic for nervous diseases in Halle from 1903 to 1908, as well as with J.L. Eidingers at the Neurological and Psychiatric Institute in Frankfurt and the anatomical laboratory of the Munich Psychiatric Clinic.
Influence and Achievements
Karl Kleist was particularly influenced by C. Wernicke, whose work he sought to continue. He gained widespread recognition for his doctoral dissertation on "Psychomotor Disorders of Movement in Mental Disorders" (Untersuchungen zur Kenntnis der psychomotorischen Bewegungsstörungen bei Geisteskranken) in 1908. From 1909 to 1914, he served as the chief physician at the Clinic for Nervous Diseases in Erlangen under the directorship of G. Specht. He defended his dissertation in psychiatry and neurology during this time, aiming to secure a position as an associate professor. From 1915 to 1916, he held the position of an extraordinary professor, and from 1914 to 1916, he served as the chief military physician in a lazaretto.
In 1916, Kleist became a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Rostock. From 1916 to 1919, he also served as a consultant at a neurological lazaretto in Mecklenburg and as the chief of a reserve lazaretto for brain injuries in Rostock. From 1920 until his retirement in 1950, he held the position of an ordinary professor and director of the Psychiatric and Neurological Clinic at the University of Frankfurt am Main. He devoted much of his efforts to the design, construction, and equipment of the new Clinic for Nervous and Mental Illnesses in Frankfurt (1927-1930) and founded the Research Institute for Brain Pathology and Psychopathology.
Karl Kleist was a teacher of K. Leonhard and formulated methodological requirements for the classification of disorders, emphasizing the need for the simplest clinically documented elements ("ideal pathological radicals") as the basis of the classification. He conducted numerous observations on psychological disorders resulting from gunshot wounds to the head and formulated his theory of "narrow localization" of higher mental functions. He attempted to establish a connection between mental illnesses and brain dysfunction, particularly focusing on spatial substrate localization and the classification of schizophrenia. Kleist also developed a classification of professions and specialized in post-traumatic neuroses. He coined the term "involutional paranoia" (1913), "symptomatic instability" (1920), "episodic twilight consciousness" (1926), and "homogeneous symptomatology of psychoses." He expanded Emil Kraepelin's classification of endogenous psychoses, providing a detailed examination of depressive psychosis and identifying a phenomenological complex of contempt and hatred towards the patient as perceived by the surrounding individuals.
Kleist's work included a classic description of impairments in motivation (aspatiality, narrowing of interests), and criticality in cases of frontal lobe damage (Die alogische Denkstorungen, Arch. f. Psychiatrie, 1930, N 40; Gehirnpathologie, Lpz., 1934).
