Tamar Vishlitzky

Ever since moving to Concord, MA, Tamar had been really happy to be so close to nature. It reminded her of the good parts of her childhood. She would take many walks and bike rides - on the day of her death, she was planning to ride farther than she had ever ridden before. She had beautiful eyes (“elephant eyes” according to her father), and a beautiful smile and soul.

She is survived by her mother, sister, and two daughters and many others whose lives she had touched.

Tamar’s life was not simple nor easy. She was a deeply sensitive person and her soul had the depths of the ocean. She created beauty in the world with her unique creativity and aesthetics. She was also immensely empathetic and felt deeply the horrors and hardships of others in the world.

Her deepest love and devotion above all else was to her two daughters, whom she adored. She loved them deeply and unconditionally and would go to any lengths for them.

Moving to the United States at 14 years old, Tamar graduated from high school early despite the immense challenges and culture shock of being a new immigrant, and went to Mass College of Art at the age of 16 where she found a love of painting. In her early 20s she was already getting her masters degree in painting at UC Boulder where she studied and taught under Betty and George Woodman, who she admired greatly.

Tamar often alluded to her first career as an artist which she felt informed her work as a psychoanalyst. Tamar was a talented painter, and later in life, a ceramicist.

Tamar worked as a Psychotherapist and her patients were always at the forefront of her mind.

She received her Masters in Social Work from Boston University and went on to train with a focus on trauma at the renowned Victims of Violence program at Cambridge Hospital and the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy in Boston. She spent nearly two decades practicing as a therapist and then as an analyst after completing analytic training at the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis in 2021. She was highly sought after as a teacher, committee member and supervisor in the psychotherapeutic community for her wealth of clinical experience and capacity to think in deeply nuanced ways about human suffering. She was a devout believer in the both/and. Her legacy of openness to others and keen appreciation for relating and living well left an indelible mark on all of those she touched and will be carried on within them.

Tamar was an extremely skilled and sensitive clinician and thinker. Her perspective and opinion on clinical matters – and, simply, on matters of living -- were highly valued by her colleagues. In her trademark understated demeanor she would weave incisive, life-changing offerings into matter-of-fact conversations with colleagues, patients and friends to take or leave as they pleased. If you didn’t pay close attention you could miss the message because Tamar would not tolerate any grandstanding or pretense in others let alone in herself. Deep change would take root and it was only later that you realized it was something that Tamar offered to you.

Helping people was incredibly important to Tamar. Her insight helped not only her patients but her friends, family and colleagues too. She was wise beyond her years and always had the most insightful advice. She saw the beauty in the world and made it a more beautiful place, even while having awareness and empathy about the hardships within it.

Her sudden and violent demise, came as she was beginning a new and exciting chapter - one she had finally entered into with more ease, confidence, wisdom and connection - has left her family and community profoundly devastated, heartbroken, and aching with the chasm of her loss. She is so missed.

Services are private at the family's request.