It was the summer of 1966. After a stint as an on-the-job trained psychiatrist in the army during the Vietnam Era I began my psychiatric residency at Columbia University. As soon as I crossed the threshold of the austere New York State Psychiatric Institute the respected Chairman of the Department and coauthor of the preeminent psychiatric textbook in the world Lawrence Kolb became a “great eminence” to be both revered and feared. Little did I know that we would become good friends and colleagues of 40 years duration. Larry attended weekly resident meetings where I soon came to know him as a dedicated, sensitive but no nonsense “old school” administrator. I remember his response to a group of residents who complained about the condition of the bed in the resident on call room. I expected Larry to be sympathetic. He was anything but sympathetic and said that when he was a resident at Johns Hopkins there was no bed in the on call room and the residents were expected to stay up all night. He continued, “You guys should consider yourselves lucky to have a room or be able to sleep at all when you are on call.” Despite his “take no prisoners” attitude Larry soon impressed me as a warm, at times gentle, and compassionate person whose door was always open to students, residents and faculty. A quintessential academic, Larry was a consummate gentleman who never compromised his impeccable principles or values.

Lawrence Kolb was also an outstanding clinician and a gifted teacher and supervisor. His theoretical approach was strongly influenced by Neo-Freudian psychoanalytic principles shaped by both formal training and his exposure to the faculty at Chestnut Lodge. However, for me it was his eclectic orientation and open minded pragmatic approach to patients that was most instructive. You intervened because your judgment was good and you believed that your intervention would benefit the patient. He never hesitated to break the mold. I vividly remember as a second year resident a clinical conference on the Adolescent Inpatient Service. Larry was interviewing a 17-year-old schizophrenic young man who exhibited a panoply of compulsive behaviors including intense sexual impulses and acting out. It was a coed service and the assembled staff hung on his every question. Toward the end of the interview the young man summoned every bit of his courage and asked, “Dr. Kolb what am I supposed to do when I get sexually excited?” Without missing a beat Larry moved closer to the young man, looked directly into his eyes and said, “Masturbate.” I can only imagine how long that response haunted the young man and resonated with many in the stunned audience.

In the spring of that second year of residency I was asked to attend a meeting with Dr. Kolb that would prove to be pivotal in our relationship. His office was on the top floor of the Psychiatric Institute which also housed the office of his trusted executive assistant Margaret Neubart. She was the quintessential gatekeeper and known for her signature black lace fishnet stockings. Miss Neubart as she was addressed was before her time and invaluable to Larry. She was ageless and right out of central casting. Nothing got past her and no one got to see Larry without her permission. If you were privileged enough to win her confidence you came to see her as a friend and ally. At the meeting Larry asked George Luhrman and me to serve as chief residents for the coming year. I jumped at the opportunity and from that day forward our relationship was cemented.

A few months later I appeared in Dr. Kolb’s waiting room for my first day as Chief Resident. Fortunately I had started psychoanalytic training and training analysis so that I was at the least superficially familiar with concepts like the Oedipus complex, competitive anxiety and the role of authority figures. Curiously, I did not realize until I began to write this piece that in fact Larry had many similarities to my own father in stature and demeanor. His office was immaculate and the folders and papers on his desk were neatly stacked in perfectly even rectangular piles. My anxiety must have been palpable; my knees knocking and my speech halting. Larry attempted to put me at ease as he explained that for the next 6 months I would be his eyes and ears and direct the Institute in his steed on a day to day basis. We would meet first thing every morning to review our responsibilities for the day.

I also became Larry’s supervisee. It was an invaluable experience and most important I learned that common sense trumps theory. His anecdotes and stories about his own experiences with the likes of Harold Searles and Adelaide Johnson added to his aura, but it was his decisive interventions that were most formative in my maturation. His interpretations were straight forward, unambiguous and never cloaked in psychological jargon. On one occasion when I was nearly obsessed with an adolescent inpatient that had made a serious suicide attempt by hoarding insulin and then injecting himself, Larry said, “Psychiatrists who don’t have suicides don’t treat sick patients.” That served me well both as a therapist and a teacher.

Early that summer, Shervert Frazier returned from Baylor to become Vice Chairman of the Department. Sherv first met Larry at the Mayo Clinic where he had been smitten by Larry’s remarkable clinical skill in working with medical inpatients. Sherv’s office was on the same floor of the Institute and although quite handsome and well appointed, his desk was chaotic with papers and folders strewn asunder. His management style was dramatically more freewheeling than Larry’s. I quickly learned that both styles worked and could coexist and be synergistic. Sherv joined our morning meetings and Larry soon established a playful competition to see who would arrive first each morning. Needless to say Larry usually arrived first. One morning Sherv and I sat waiting in Larry’s office. As the time passed Larry did not appear. We were concerned because he had recently undergone cancer surgery and to the best of our knowledge had recovered fully. At about 8:15 AM the phone rang. It was Larry. In his own inimitable style he said, “You guys thought I was dead.” He had been re-admitted to Presbyterian Hospital for a minor revision of his surgery and returned to work in a few days.

Soon Larry took the mandatory psychiatrist’s August summer vacation. During that period the chief resident covered his private practice. I admitted one of his patients, a prominent New York City dowager who began to spiral out of control with an episode of manic depressive illness. Lithium had not been introduced as an effective treatment. I contemplated the available treatment options. Then one day when Sherv and I were on the inpatient unit together he asked, “Doctor, when are you going to begin to treat that patient?” I did the right thing. The patent improved. Larry was pleased on his return and I still use the clock the patient gave me as a token of her appreciation. Too soon my service as chief resident came to an end. Larry and I talked when we met in the hall and on occasion at lunch but we went our separate ways.

In 1975 Lawrence Kolb was nominated to be New York State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene. It was the most visible job in American psychiatry and reputed to be the most difficult job in America. It was a tumultuous time in mental health marked by the rise of the Association for Retarded Children as and the ultimate break up of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene into separate agencies for mental health, mental retardation and substance abuse. After instituting several significant reforms in the state mental health system Larry chose his successor and moved on to the next chapter of his remarkable career. At age 71 Larry was appointed Distinguished Physician in Psychiatry at the Albany Veterans Administration Hospital and began his groundbreaking work with Vietnam veterans. This body of work produced more than 20 publications on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and helped to establish it as an accepted psychiatric diagnosis.

In the summer of 1983 I found myself in Albany appointed New York State Commissioner of the Office of Mental Health. It was another period of turmoil in mental health at the height of deinstitutionalization and homelessness. I went to pay a courtesy call to see Larry at the VA Hospital. We met on a regular basis to discuss his research and the daunting challenges of the Commissionership. He was enormously helpful and our friendship evolved into invitations to his home. I think he was proud that one of the “kids” had followed him to Albany and was doing a credible job. More than anything Larry cherished his beloved wife Madeline, his house on the river and swimming and boating in the river. For me Larry Kolb lived every day to the fullest, never complained and never looked back.

In recent years Larry moved south and our relationship became one of telephone calls and Christmas cards, but I will never forget the important place he had in my life. Thank you Larry Kolb for being who you were and always will be for me and so many others whose lives you touched. You have always been bigger than life and I salute you.