M. Pat Korb

Margaret Patton Korb, Ph.D. (1920&endash;2009) was an American professional Gestalt therapist, published author, and the director of a training institute
She died August 20, 2009, after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 89.
Known to her friends and colleagues as “Pat”, she was born Virginia Margaret Patton in Manilla, Iowa, in 1920, the eldest of three sisters. Following WWII, Pat moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where she raised a family, joined the PTA, and was very active in the Methodist Church: singing in the Chancel Choir, secretary to Bishop R. Marvin Stuart, and a period in the ‘60s when she was central to the Youth Program. While pursuing graduate work at San Jose State, she worked at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park as a research assistant and editor in their Radio Physics Laboratory. In 1968 she moved to Gainesville, Florida, where she attended the University of Florida, completing a M.Ed., Ed.S., and Doctorate degree in Counselor Education.
Pat was mainly known as a professional Gestalt therapist, published author, and the director of a training institute, where her tireless work in this field gained her wide, and affectionate, recognition. She was a founding member of the International Gestalt Therapy Association (IGTA), spearheaded a NIMH /DOC project working with sex offenders which earned her an appointment to the Governor's Council on Correctional Education (1985), and was a project developer and coordinator with Lifespan Center at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville (1981). She was still seeing clients in private practice up to the time of her sudden illness.
Dr. Korb trained under Gertrude Krause, herself a student of Fritz Perls; and also worked with Sidney M. Jourard until his untimely death in 1974.
Pat and Diane Farris co-founded The Gestalt Center of Gainesville, Inc., in Gainesville, Florida, in 1976.
Pat is co-author of Gestalt Therapy: Practice and Theory with Van De Riet and Gorrell (Pergamon Press, 1980/1989). She is the author of two papers dealing with aspects of the Gestalt therapeutic process: "Redefining Maturity and Maturational Processes" (The Gestalt Journal, Vol. XXII, No. 2, pp 7-29), and "The Numinous Ground: I-Thou in Gestalt Work" (The Gestalt Journal, Vol. XI, No. 1, pp 97-105). Her last book, iContact: The Gestalt Guide to Skilled Communication, co-authored with Davenport, Martin, and Korb, was still pending formal publication at the time of this writing.

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