(Employee) Therapy Anyone?

The recent WSJ article about employer-provided in-office therapy sessions raises some good points about destigmatizing mental health in the workplace and promoting overall wellness generally. But the article also reminds us about the risks of blurring lines between an employee’s personal and professional life and the potential dangers inherent in the spillover of confidential (personal, medical, and other information) in the workplace. I have written previously about the beneficial role performance evaluations may have as “talk therapy” in an employee’s career based upon the learning that comes with balanced feedback. But it seems to me that true talk therapy – undertaken by a licensed and trained professional in an appropriate diagnostic setting – does not belong in the workplace.

The article features an employer who provides an annual benefit of a dozen free on-site therapy sessions to its employees. While it is commendable to care about the whole employee, providing on-site therapy touches upon a few somewhat sensitive employment topics. The first concerns confidentiality of health information, which includes an employee’s decision to seek (or even not seek) medical treatment. The employer in the article was reported to have taken steps to provide a separate location for the therapy sessions so employees did not encounter each other during on-site therapy visits, as well as other privacy preservation measures. But the simple fact is that confidentiality is hard to guarantee for on-site employment activities. And even though GenX employees (and the generation of workers who follow them) do think differently about mental health and wellness than the generations preceding them, there is a real risk that an employee’s use of this benefit will become the topic of what used to be known as water cooler – now Slack – talk.

The other employment risk on-site therapy poses is the potential use of information that is disclosed during a therapy session. Ethical, licensing and medical rules govern what a therapist must and must not do with information learned about a patient, but what about information the therapist learns about an employer? This is particularly a concern if the information source and content is confirmed by several different employees and might be information that merits action (such as information suggesting that a manager is engaging in harassing or other actionable or illegal conduct). There is a reason employers follow guidelines when reports or complaints are made concerning such conduct. It is unclear how those guidelines should be followed if the contents of a therapy session are supposed to remain confidential, for good legal, therapeutic and ethical reasons.

It seems to me a far better approach for employers wishing to explore this benefit is to provide employees with a set amount of money (perhaps as part of a tax-advantaged benefit plan ) that the employee is encouraged to use at the employee’s discretion as part of well-being program designed to support all aspects of health (mental, physical and even financial fitness). That way therapy can be encouraged and supported, but kept separate in all other respects from the workplace. Therapy for all may be an excellent idea, but conducting it outside the confines of the workplace seems like a better one.