Some Problems in Rehabilitation as Seen by a Lewinian

I will talk about matters rooted in Kurt Lewin’s early work with his students up to the time of his interest in small group research. During the ~O’S, I was his student in Germany, and took my Ph.D. with him. My thesis dealt with anger in frustration situations. Later, I was Lewin’s assistant during his stay at Cornell and at the University of Iowa, until he arranged to move to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ten days before he died, we were discussing psychological matters in Washington. I am a Lewinian in my psychological thinking, emphasizing the structural characteristics of psychological occurrences. When Lewin once asked me, “DO you believe that topological properties actually exist in life?”, I simply said “Yes.” I felt then, as now, that much in life is spatial and structural. Working with Lewin was a cooperative effort. In solving problems, the emphasis was on work rather than on individual performers. This was characteristic of Lewin’s “Quase1strippe”-the weekly meeting with his graduate students that began in Berlin. It characterized his daily-and daylong-meetings with his thesis students, as well as the frequent meetings of Fritz and Grace Heider, Eugenia Hanfmann, Lewin, and myself, in Massachusetts during Lewin’s first years of residence in the United States. The Quaselstrippe meetings continued in the States and by then comprised a sizeable group of people interested in Topological Psychology. Characteristic of Lewin’s approach was a complete involvement in the psychological