Yalom

These past few days, a shocking news story has gripped the mental health community:

Yalom's eldest son, also a therapist, chose to end his life.

I feel deeply saddened for this spiritual mentor, Irvin Yalom.

He lost his wife just a few years ago, and now he has lost his son.

I don't want to discuss the question that people might be more interested in:

"Why would even a therapist choose this path?"

Because I have served children at suicide prevention centers,

some of whom were truly exceptional.

What that "excellence" taught me, I might share with you another day.

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Today, I want you to know about Victor's contributions, his kindness,

and how he has quietly influenced the next generation of therapists.

How are therapists trained? In most professions, such as medicine, law, dentistry, and even plumbing, apprentices learn their skills gradually by "watching their master practice."

But the profession of psychotherapy is strange.

Therapists often develop this difficult skill in an almost #vacuum state, independently.

This is also where Victor Yalom, founder of Psychotherapy.net, began his career.

In his youth, he used an old-fashioned video camera to record his mentor, James Bugental, conducting actual therapy sessions.

Unexpectedly, this videotape caused a huge sensation.

It turned out that many therapists had never had the opportunity to witness a real therapy session firsthand.

He then realized that he had found something the entire industry had long lacked—a window for younger generations to see "therapy actually happening."

So, he spent thirty years continuously interviewing and documenting important figures in the field of psychotherapy, from Sue Johnson and Peter Levine to Otto Kernberg, accumulating over a hundred training videos.

—Among them, the most precious is his personal interview with his father,

existential psychotherapy master Irvin Yalom. That work includes Irvin Yalom's complete therapy sessions with three clients in his clinic. Each client stood at a crossroads in their lives, arriving with different apparent struggles. But Yalom always gently guided them beyond the surface issues, touching upon the more fundamental existential anxieties beneath: death, freedom, loneliness, and meaning.

The film also includes extensive behind-the-scenes commentary, dissecting how he works in the "#Now" therapeutic relationship.

The most moving part is a deep, hours-long conversation between Victor and his father, starting with his very first case and discussing his contributions to group therapy and existential psychotherapy.

— Victor allowed therapists worldwide to truly "see" for the first time how his father worked—not just imagining the master through books, but witnessing firsthand how he quietly accompanied someone in the clinic, leading them into their deepest wounds.

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Victor Yalom passed away this February.

This man who taught the world "how to see" left us perhaps more than just training videos; he left us a reminder that helpers also need to be seen and accepted.

— If you are experiencing an emotional low or have thoughts of self-harm

Find suicide prevention hotline and organization for mental health professionals help and support to solve your fears and worries

You do not have to get through this alone.