New research has found that employees are increasingly seeking therapy to address everyday work stresses, highlighting an opportunity for HR to intervene and support employee mental health before it impacts the organization's financial health.

The survey from Modern Health, a global workplace mental health platform, of 2,000 full-time employees who have or are using therapy found that employers are often financing a level of care many employees may not actually need.

Jessica Watrous, chief clinical officer at Modern Health, says employees are turning to clinical support for common work-related stress rather than addressing workplace challenges directly with managers. This could mean issues that might be resolved at work are instead escalating into concerns requiring clinical intervention.

A large majority (78.4%), in fact, say ordinary workplace frustrations—like a difficult boss or a stressful project—are increasingly being treated as mental-health problems requiring therapy, Watrous says.

"When therapy is the only support people know how to ask for, it's not surprising that the solution to everyday stress starts getting described in clinical terms," she explains, adding that it's a "system-design problem" more than a personal one.

"A difficult manager or a stressful project is a real problem worth addressing, of course, but the support that actually resolves that sort of stress may not be therapy," she says. "Options like coaching or skills-based programs often may be a better fit."

To be clear, Watrous says the answer also isn't "gatekeeping" therapy, as some people have clinical needs that are best served by effective therapy, and delivering that access is critical for mental healthcare. But, she explains, therapy isn't the only way to take care of emotional health, and employees deserve multiple, effective options they can scale up and down—so the modality matches their needs, concerns and preferences instead of everyone defaulting to the same option.

"The finding is not that therapy fails to support these stresses, as 88% of respondents say it met their needs," she says. "The problem highlighted by the survey is that therapy seems to be serving as a catch-all solution, for which it was never intended."

With that, when every kind of stress leads to the same door, she notes, people end up in clinical care for challenges that were never clinical, and often stay there long after it makes sense.

"This is an expensive outcome, disproportionate with the clinical need," she says.

No 'one-size-fits-all' for mental health

On the employer side, benefit leaders are facing this situation against another year of cost increases, with Business Group on Health reporting U.S. employer healthcare costs are projected to rise 9.2% in 2027. Watrous says mental health is in the top tier of conditions driving employer healthcare spend as utilization climbs, and when untreated, is associated with higher costs in other top claims areas including cancer, musculoskeletal and cardiometabolic concerns.

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