Stephen (Steve) Zahm

1/22/1943-4/29/2023

Professional/Gestalt Obituary

My beloved life/professional partner of 45 years, Dr. Steve (Stephen) Zahm passed away on April 29th at our home in Portland, Oregon surrounded by family and love, after four years of valiantly meeting the challenges of metastatic cancer. He was eighty years old. He died as he lived, with courage, integrity, wisdom, and his sense of humor intact to the very end. Steve had the warmest smile, the best laugh, the biggest heart, and the most brilliant mind. It is beyond words to say how much he will be missed.

Steve’s first experience with Gestalt therapy was in the late 60s at a small workshop with Jim Simkin in Montana, shortly after he completed his psychology PhD at the University of Portland. He was hooked! Steve then began training at the Gestalt Training Center--San Diego. His experience with Erv and Miriam Polster ignited his lifelong calling--working as a Gestalt therapist, teacher, supervisor, and trainer. He graduated from that program in 1977 and was one of the first to bring Gestalt therapy training to the Pacific northwest. Bob Martin was also an important influence as trainer, supervisor, and therapist for over twenty years. Steve had a passion for bringing Gestalt therapy into academic settings and taught in various colleges and universities before landing at Pacific University School of Professional Psychology where he was an adjunct professor from 1980 to 2017. Any course that Steve taught was always in demand. He brought his values of non-hierarchy, collaboration and deep respect for students and the learning process to his teaching. He loved teaching, and his students, and in return he was loved and revered by them. Steve was truly a master therapist and had unique skills as a teacher, but was humble about it, and was committed to continuing to learn himself.

These are only a few examples of the many loving tributes that poured in as people learned of Steve entering hospice shortly before he died. One of his former students wrote:

"This world will be forever changed because of your presence and absence. As much as a student can love a teacher, I love you. You’re living through all of us you touched for generations to come."

And a current trainee wrote:

"You have been more than a teacher and mentor to me. You have been a guiding force, a wise and compassionate presence, a gestalt father who has helped me to grow and learn in ways that I never thought possible. Your kindness, wisdom, and insight have touched me deeply, and I will always carry your teachings with me. You have made an indelible mark on my life, and I am grateful for every moment that we have shared."

Steve and I were true partners and a professional team from the beginning of our relationship in 1978, working with couples, co-leading therapy groups and later training groups; we married in 1981. We attended many weeklong Graduates and Training for Trainers programs with the Polsters, continuing to learn and grow together. We were part of a training group in Portland with Isadore From that met over a period of six years. We gave our first conference presentation at a Gestalt Journal conference in the late 80s, then presented at most AAGT conferences through 2018, and had more international adventures that included working in Australia and Israel. Steve and I co-founded an APA approved training program, Gestalt Therapy Training Center—Northwest, in 1996 along with Jon Frew, and trained hundreds of therapists over more than twenty years, creating a strong and vibrant Gestalt professional community in Portland. The regional AAGT conference that we co-sponsored in 2014 drew over 100 participants. It featured local presenters and was created by a planning committee of our trainees. After many years of studying Buddhist psychology, practicing meditation, and attending retreats together, we developed a training track integrating Buddhist psychology/meditation with Gestalt therapy training in 2007. Steve also wrote and co-wrote many articles and book chapters on Gestalt therapy theory and practice, and our book Buddhist Psychology and Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Psychotherapy for the 21st Century was published in 2018. Steve was deeply gratified that the book has been so positively reviewed, well received and widely read in the US and internationally over the past 5 years.

Steve was diagnosed with cancer in 2019, and not long after we learned that the cancer had metastasized to his brain. There were more than three and a half years of successful treatments, and Steve continued to live his life with so much love, his indomitable spirit, and renewed commitment to his work and to meditation practice. He was an inspiration to family, and friends as well as his trainees/supervisees and patients in how he faced treatment challenges and the possibility of his death. After brain surgery in December of 2022, Steve was never well enough to return to his practice. Although he continued to hope to get back to the work he loved--he never wanted to retire--it was not to be. There are so many Gestalt therapists in the world now who were his students and trainees over so many years, influenced in this career direction by their contact with Steve. And there are so many patients who say he saved their lives or their marriages. The ripple effect will go on and on as his legacy. His family, friends and I are deeply grateful to have been able to share this life’s journey with this amazing man. May his memory be a blessing.

With love to all and condolences to those who also knew, loved, and will miss Steve.

Eva Gold