Right up there with Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, and yes -- Bruce Lee -- I have to say, THIS is a person I wish I'd gotten the chance to know while he was still alive What an interesting figure he cuts across the history of PTSD research and treatment...
Lawrence C. Kolb was a leader in the community psychiatry movement, and a talented researcher and clinician who was the chair of the psychiatry department at Columbia University Medical Center. His obituary, from the New York Times, is linked here, and it shows the breadth and extent of his remarkable career, in brief highlights. He even served in the Navy, and possibly studied "battle fatigue" among World War II veterans. He is known for his work studying "phantom limb pain" among amputee veterans, among other accomplishments. He also seems to have been elected president of the American Psychiatric Association, serving from 1968 to 1969.
A lifelong learner and contributor, it wasn't until after his retirement from Columbia -- at the end of what would have been a very full life for anyone else -- that Kolb, at 71, applied himself to the study of PTSD among Vietnam war veterans.
As his obituary points out, "...in the early 1980s, nearing retirement, he led studies that demonstrated how combat stress could cause clear physical symptoms — a finding that helped prompt the government to undertake large studies of post-traumatic symptoms among Vietnam veterans."
I first heard Kolb's name in connection with a machine he'd designed that measured galvanic skin response (similar to the method employed by lie detectors) to test Vietnam veterans for combat-based PTSD. My understanding -- from the Vietnam veteran and longtime history teacher from upstate New York, who had met Kolb and been tested on his machine -- was that the machine took much of the "guesswork" out of determining whether a vet had actually seen combat and was suffering from combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder. With the diagnosis simplified, the focus could then shift to treatment.
Why would speedy diagnosis be so important, for vets with PTSD? There's a phrase in the legal biz that "Justice delayed = Justice denied." The same could be said of the PTSD diagnosis and claims approval process. The longer either of those takes, the more misery the veteran and his or her family is in -- and the more they risk homelessness and despair. The quicker and more effectively a veteran can be diagnosed, start the claims approval process, and get his or her claim approved, the quicker they can begin to put the diagnosis behind them and go on with the rest of their lives. It seems like a machine like this must have been a real boon to the process, yet it also seems like it was popular for a time, and then strangely fell out of favor. I'm unclear why, when it seems like it would have conferred such benefit.
Reading Gerald Nicosia's excellent book, Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement, which profiles a few of the leading figures in PTSD treatment and research among its almost 700 pages (hardbound), I expected to read more about Lawrence Kolb, M.D., his work with veterans with PTSD, and his remarkable machine -- but nothing was mentioned. I asked the author why, and his response was that even a great researcher sometimes misses something, or somebody. In this case, missing Kolb would seem to be a great loss. I really wish he was still alive today, to make sense of PTSD for another generation of veterans, and tp push for comprehensive, fair treatment of veterans with PTSD - another one of his signature approaches.
As his New York Times obituary points out, in one of the last papers he published, he makes a plea for more humane treatment of drug offenders. Think of these same words, applied to veterans suffering from combat trauma and/or PTSD:
“There is only one way to deal with an individual who is sick, with dignity, compassion, care, confidentiality and without discrimination.”
Lawrence C. Kolb, M.D., (June 16, 1911 - October 20, 2006.) A true great among psychiatrists. Your presence, wisdom and compassion for veterans are sorely missed today.
Editor's note: Kolb did leave an extensive bibliography of published papers, many of which are still available in medical journals, online, and via the public and academic library systems.
