07/07/2026
The passing of Victor Yalom has been weighing on my heart.
I still remember being in graduate school, watching videos on Psychotherapy.net. It was one of the greatest collections of psychotherapy resources for students and practicing therapists. I can still picture Victor introducing different therapeutic approaches, interviewing some of the greatest clinicians in the field, and making psychotherapy feel alive and accessible. He had such a warm, pleasant personality. I always found him very different from his father, Irvin Yalom, another giant in psychotherapy. Even today, I still use Psychotherapy.net. It has been an invaluable resource throughout my journey as a therapist.
I was deeply saddened to learn that Victor took his own life.
Su***de always breaks my heart, but this one feels different. We naturally think that someone who has dedicated so much of his life to supporting therapists, educating the community, and creating such an incredible body of resources would somehow be able to help himself. Yet I don't respect him any less.
When something traumatic happens, our attention is often drawn entirely to the tragedy. We forget the other 90% of the person's life - the beauty, the generosity, the countless ways they have positively touched others. The trauma becomes the headline, while the life that came before it quietly fades into the background.
Still, my heart feels heavy.
His passing reminds me of one of the oldest paradoxes in our profession: the wounded healer. It is the chicken-and-egg problem that draws so many of us into psychotherapy in the first place. We are often called to this work because we know suffering personally, because we have walked through our own darkness and want to help others find their way through theirs.
With that comes a profound responsibility-to ourselves and to the people we serve-to continue healing ourselves.
Yes, the wounded healer.
Everyone in this profession knows this idea. We talk about it often. But it is surprisingly easy to neglect the wounded healer within ourselves while we are busy caring for others, serving our communities, building practices, raising families, and simply trying to keep up with life.
Today, I hope we can send a little prayer, a little light, to Victor. I hope we remember not only how his story ended, but the immense light he brought into the psychotherapy community, the generations of therapists he helped train, and the extraordinary resources he built for all of us.
For that, I am deeply grateful.
Goodbye, Victor.
