Jordan Peterson battling ‘old neurological injury,’ his daughter says

'Every day for the last year has been hell'

Published Apr 19, 2026  •  2 minute read

Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson addresses the 5th Demographic Summit in the Fine Arts Museum in Budapest on Sept. 14, 2023. Photo by ATTILA KISBENEDEK/ /AFP via Getty Images

Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson is dealing with a serious neurological condition that has triggered a movement disorder, his daughter said in a health update she shared online Saturday.

“Dad’s been suffering from an old neurological injury that’s more recently been causing akathisia,” Mikhaila Peterson said in a video posted on X.

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Akathisia is a disorder in which a person is “unable to remain physically still,” and has been “linked to certain types of medications, especially antipsychotic medications,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Mikhaila said her father’s symptoms started last summer despite being off psychiatric medications for six years.

The 63-year-old experienced a “flare-up likely induced by mould (CIRS) and stress” that was complicated by pneumonia and associated sepsis a month later, Mikhaila said.

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The controversial former University of Toronto psychology professor had previously battled an addiction to benzodiazepine and checked into rehab in Moscow in 2019.

“This year has just been terrible,” Mikhaila said after she described how her dad was “misdiagnosed repeatedly” before he developed pneumonia and sepsis.

“This recent flare-up that started last August was likely due to the stress of both of his parents — my grandparents — dying last year, moving countries, selling his home and mould exposures, which was enough to trigger a reoccurrence of neurological symptoms,” she said.

She noted that he had experienced those symptoms before in 2020/2021, but it was “something we didn’t think was possible after five-and-a-half years away from his psych medications.”

Describing the effect his diagnosis has had on her family, she said, “Every day for the last year has been hell.”

Mikhaila, who is 25 weeks pregnant, said she has cried every single day until recently.

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She said now that he’s been properly diagnosed, “it can be carefully healed again, like it has before.”

In her post online, Mikhaila said she doesn’t plan on providing another update on her father’s condition until it improves.

Last year, she shared in a social media post that her dad had been diagnosed with chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS), but said at the time that it was unrelated to akathisia.

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