Skip to main content

CPSP 2011 Plenary Speaker Professor John Patton


The 2011 Plenary of the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy will be held March 27-30, 2011 at the Sheraton Oceanfront Hotel Virginia Beach VA.

We are pleased to announce John Patton as the Plenary speaker.


CPSP has a tradition of honoring and listening to the living patriarchs of the clinical pastoral community. John Patton is one of those living patriarchs. This will be his first time on the platform at a CPSP Plenary. We are honored to have him.

John is Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia and a retired ACPE Supervisor. He has practiced as marriage and family therapist is the author of many books including: Is Human Forgiveness Possible, Pastoral Care in Context, Pastoral Care: An Essential Guide and From Ministry to Theology, Pastoral Action & Reflection. John is also an associate Editor of Abingdon’s Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling and a retired United Methodist minister.


The room rate for the event is $99 per night. Contact the Sheraton:

888-627 8231 or
757-425-9000



Popular posts from this blog

Edwin Friedman Thinking Systems

What I want to do this morning is talk about how congregations function like families. I am going to do it from a variety of points of view. I’m going to begin with a fable. This one is called "Burnout" and it’s about a fish tank with a scavenger fish in it, you know a scavenger fish is supposed to keep the fish tank clean. I’m trying to be as realistic about it in my use of language as possible so I hope that you will appreciate that. Once upon a time there was a scavenger fish that lost its taste for shit. (I don’t think I have to read the rest of the fable. You all got the message already!) It was your normal, garden-variety scavenger and had never previously shown any signs of being different from the other members of its species. It lived in a normal-sized tank with the members of several schools and, from the very beginning of its association with this ecosystem, seemed always to be in perfect harmony with the environment. It never got in the way of the others and th

The Wounded Healer Too Wounded To Heal

“The painful irony is that the minister, who wants to touch the center of men’s lives, finds himself on the periphery; often pleading in vain for admission….He never seems to be where the action is.” I wonder if this says more about Henri Nouwen than it does about the minister’s involvement in critical and crisis situations.“ George L. Buck Ph.D. The minister, the story tells us, is sitting among the poor, binding his/her wounds one at a time, waiting for the moment when he/she will be needed. The minister is called to be the wounded healer, the one who must look after his/her wounds and at the same time be prepared to heal the wounds of others.” --- Henri Nouwen. In his article titled “Wounded Healers”, Thomas Maeder quotes a child of psychiatrists (both parents): “I Think my parents were crazy, I think that, somehow, being psychiatrists kept them in line. They used it as a protection. They’re both quite crazy, but their jobs give them really good cover.” It is no secret that the so
Master Fezziwig Knew How to Celebrate Employees Borne there by the Spirit of Christmas-Past the scene opens: It is Christmas once more and Scrooge is standing outside the warehouse where once he was an apprentice. They go inside and Scrooge is delighted to find his former boss – Mr Fezziwig. Mr Fezziwig is instructing a young Scrooge and his fellow apprentice, Dick, to ready the premises for their annual Christmas party. The scene fills as in come a fiddler, Mrs Fezziwig, all the other Fezziwigs together with all the employees. They enjoy music and dancing and when finally the joyous evening comes to a close Scrooge is forced to reflect on his own treatment as an employer regarding his staff. “When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr and Mrs Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the tw