Home

Contributors
A-D

E-H

I-L

M-P

Q-T

U-Z

Dr. Ron McDonald
Pastoral Counselor,
Samaritan Counseling Centers and Church Health Center
Memphis, Tennessee

Ron was born in 1951 and raised in Arkansas, the second of seven sons of a United Methodist minister and his wife, Charles and Lois McDonald. Ron became a Quaker in 1979 and has been presiding Clerk of the Memphis Friends Meeting. He was educated at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Training Institute for Counseling and Therapy of the Foundation for Religion and Mental Health in Briarcliff Manor, New York.

He began his ministerial career as Campus Minister at Western Connecticut State University. He and his family moved to Memphis in 1985 where he began working full time as a pastoral counselor.
He is a Diplomate in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and Tennessee Licensed Clinical Pastoral Therapist, and author of Building the Therapeutic Sanctuary: The Fundamentals of Psychotherapy – A Pastoral Counseling Perspective (1stBooks Library, 2000), and Home Again: A Pilgrimage of Father and Son (1stBooks Library, 2002).

Ron is an elected leader of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and the Tennessee Association of Pastoral Therapists, a part-time teacher in pastoral counseling, parent education, and philosophy, as well as a speaker/preacher in churches.

Additionally, he is a folksinger and storyteller who performs with his guitar and hammer dulcimer. He is a very active outdoors person, and is married to Susan Penn, a librarian. They have two grown sons.