PHOENIX, Arizona – Dr Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist and bestselling author, spent close to a month in intensive care this summer with pneumonia and sepsis. His condition became critical, and according to his family, he came frighteningly close to death.
The 62-year-old scholar, known for his lectures and books, was said to be in grave condition in a video posted by his daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, which has drawn hundreds of thousands of views.
“This summer has been extremely hard,” Mikhaila, 32, said in the 13-minute video, fighting back tears as she described a “terrifying” period for the family. She said her father has a pre-existing immune disorder and reacted badly to most medications, which sharply reduced treatment options and made everything more dangerous.
He was admitted in August after a run of neurological problems, including neuropathy and weakness. Doctors suspect chronic inflammatory response syndrome, likely linked to long-term mould exposure that worsened when he cleared his late father’s basement earlier this year.
Taken to the hospital by ambulance, he faced a severe decline in the ICU and was described by Mikhaila as being “near death.” She called the ordeal “heartbreaking and brutal.” He has since been moved to a general ward and is “hopefully recovering,” with small gains each day.
The family faced another crisis at the same time. On the day Peterson was rushed to the emergency room, Mikhaila’s newborn daughter, Audrey, was also taken to the hospital by ambulance with a recurrence of pulmonary hypertension and heart failure.
The timing deepened the strain. “I miss my dad. My brother misses his dad. My mum misses her best friend and husband,” Mikhaila said, asking for prayers and saying the family felt under a kind of spiritual pressure.
Support has poured in from around the world. Dr. Jordan Peterson has spoken openly about past health problems, including a serious benzodiazepine withdrawal in 2020 that involved treatment in Russia and Serbia, where he was placed in a medically induced coma while being treated for pneumonia.
His brush with death comes while his influence remains strong, even as he steps back from public life to focus on healing. In August, the family announced he would take “time off of everything.” Followers are waiting for updates on his return to platforms such as his Daily Wire podcast, Answer the Call, which he co-hosts with Mikhaila.
Dr Jordan Peterson, Campus Professor to Global Icon
Dr. Jordan Peterson rose from a University of Toronto academic to international prominence in 2016 after opposing Canada’s Bill C-16, which added gender identity and expression to human rights law. He argued that compelled speech, including mandated use of preferred pronouns, threatened free expression.
Videos of heated campus scenes and his measured responses drew millions of views. What started as one professor challenging what he saw as hasty rules turned into a cultural flashpoint.
By 2018, Kelefa Sanneh in The New Yorker called him “one of the most influential, and polarising, public intellectuals in the English-speaking world.” His book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos topped bestseller lists, mixing Jungian ideas, biblical themes, evolutionary biology, and criticism of postmodernism into advice centred on responsibility.
Talks about status hierarchies in animals, victimhood, and identity politics resonated with many young men feeling lost in a time of shifting norms. Interest in his name surged after 2016.
By the late 2010s, he was filling large venues, gaining more than 8 million YouTube subscribers, and weighing in on topics from climate debates to the rise of political figures like Donald Trump. He linked some of this to cultural pressure on men, warning that it could fuel backlash.
He calls himself a classical liberal and a traditionalist. Drawing on fields such as anthropology and religious studies, he argues that ideas like a monolithic patriarchy are “treacherous illusions” not supported by evidence.
His blunt message, clean your room, stand up straight, seek meaning over pleasure, turned him into an unexpected mentor for the disaffected.
Controversy, Critics, and Never-Ending Fight
Dr. Jordan Peterson’s rise has been marked by constant controversy, with fierce opposition from the far left, who accuse him of enforcing conformity while hiding behind concerns about “political correctness.”
Some progressive critics label him a path to the alt-right, citing internet memes and interviews with figures such as Tommy Robinson, claims he rejects as exaggerated. In a widely viewed 2018 Channel 4 exchange with Cathy Newman, he defended his view on the gender pay gap, saying personality and other factors, not only discrimination, help explain differences. The interview split opinion and went viral.
Campus conflicts fed the storm. At one point, he was likened to Hitler by university figures for arguing over pronouns, a comparison he later turned to his advantage. Outlets such as The Guardian have called his claims filled with “pseudo-facts,” saying he shifts blame onto identity politics while downplaying racial provocation on the right.
Vox has framed him as a right-wing celebrity whose calm tone masks a backlash against transgender rights. The Atlantic has argued that the left’s anger springs from fear that his critique exposes weaknesses inside liberal thought.
He has faced efforts to remove him from academic life and a torrent of personal attacks, which he says pushed him further toward open contrarianism. Online observers note a pattern in which public targets are hounded, then pushed into the centre of culture wars.
He insists he pulls more people toward the middle than the fringes, rejects bigotry, and condemns what he calls the left’s “grotesquerie.”
As Jordan Peterson recovers, his story, shaped by intellectual success, fierce debate, and new frailty, returns the focus to the person behind the public image. Fans continue to send prayers, and critics keep watch. As Mikhaila said, the family is holding on to hope.
Whether this ordeal softens or sharpens his future work is unknown, but one thing seems certain. When he speaks again, Jordan Peterson will still provoke, inspire, and divide.
