Why Therapy Should Be a Workplace Essential

I entered the workforce before the 2000s. It was a time when emotions were only personal and for the weak. It was meant to be left at the door and professionalism was synonymous with silence. The focus was to draw the line between personal and professional and I always thought that achieving it would be my greatest success. How wrong we were because we are not separate. We are a whole and anything that affects one part of our lives will naturally affect the other. And so we tirelessly worked hard, met deadlines and dealt with personal storms with absolute silence because talking about grief, loss or heartbreak was not something we did at work. It was sublimely taboo.

Back then, when life hit hard, friends were our only safe space. But even that came with risk. Choosing the wrong person would invariably land you in the middle of unwanted gossip and if the “friend” happened to be at the workplace then we were basically doomed.

Being vulnerable was regarded as a weakness. One could not cry, one could not get upset, one could not even be ecstatic. The successful employees were one who had a calm composure albeit whatever was going on in their lives.

And God forbid one mentioned Therapy. Woah! It was for the “mentally fragile”. Thankfully the phrase is now losing meaning as we evolve in our understanding of mental health. I can still feel some scrunched up noses and frowns as I know the audience reading this may not fully agree!

So enough of the era bygone, fast forward to today, we live in an era of unmatched digital connectivity yet emotional isolation is at it’s peak. Friendships are increasingly virtual, families live apart, and the workplace often becomes our most consistent social ecosystem. In such an environment, when grief or crisis strikes, who do we turn to?

Life Happens, Even at Work

Loss and struggle do not schedule themselves around work calendars. They arrive unannounced. Plenty of times, I have noticed people navigating struggles like the loss of a parent, a miscarriage, a painful breakup, a divorce or the lonely demands of single parenting. Let us get this clear, these are not “personal issues” to be neatly separated from one’s professional life. They are in fact, deep human experiences that inevitably spill into how we show up at work.

And it is not just grief. Employees today navigate chronic illness, caregiving for aging parents, burnout, financial worries, fertility struggles, identity shifts, living alone in a new city or simply the exhaustion of trying to stay strong all the time. Each of these can take a heavy toll on emotional energy and productivity.

Yet, in most workplaces, there is still an unspoken expectation to “keep it together.” Take a few days off, return, and resume as if nothing happened. But the truth is none of these emotions or struggles follow corporate policy timelines.

My Personal Journey: Holding On While Letting Go

When I had Brewathought up and running, I found myself navigating one of the hardest chapters of my life. It was my father’s terminal illness.

Those months were a blur of emotions. Between hospital visits, late-night calls with doctors, and the unspoken dread of what was to come, I was also trying to keep the business afloat. There were moments when I felt I was failing on both fronts. I was losing confidence both as a daughter and as a professional.
What helped me hold it all together was not superhuman strength. It was therapy. Extensive, consistent therapy. Week after week, it gave me the space to grieve, to process the guilt of not being everywhere at once, to learn how to breathe amid the chaos.

That emotional scaffolding is what allowed me to keep Brewathought running. And even today, therapy remains a part of my life. It is not a crisis response, but as a maintenance tool for emotional clarity and resilience.

That experience shaped my belief deeply. I can say today after almost 3 years in therapy that it should not be something people turn to after breaking down. It should be something that is simply there. It has to be accessible, accepted and a normalized support service.

Why Corporate-Backed Therapy Matters

Therapy should never be an emergency measure. It should be a built-in support system for when life inevitably happens. Imagine if companies provided therapy as a standard service not because people are “going through something,” but because everyone, at some point, will.

Offering therapy as part of corporate care is not about HR monitoring emotions or intruding into personal lives. It should be about extending a hand when an employee’s world temporarily falls apart. It says, “We see you as a person first, and as an employee second.” That kind of compassion builds more than loyalty, trust, resilience and community.

The Benefits Speak for Themselves

When therapy is made accessible and normalized the ripple effects are profound:

Faster recovery and better performance. Employees who have the space to process their emotions return to work with clearer focus and renewed energy.
⁠Lower burnout and attrition. People remember when their workplace stood by them during tough times. That memory builds a deep sense of belonging.
⁠A culture of empathy. Therapy programs signal that emotional intelligence is a corporate strength, not a soft skill.
Breaking the stigma. Every session offered, every story shared, chips away at decades of silence around mental wellbeing.

How Corporates Can Do It Right

The approach does not have to be complicated or costly. Some simple yet impactful steps could include:

Offering 3–5 confidential therapy sessions to any employee after a major life event such as bereavement, miscarriage or divorce.
Partnering with external, licensed therapists to ensure privacy and neutrality.
Conducting regular wellness check-ins not as performance reviews, but as genuine confidential conversations.
⁠Training managers to recognize emotional distress and guide employees toward professional help.

I do not think this is a radical idea. It is a compassionate upgrade to how modern workplaces operate.

A Personal Reflection

If therapy had been accessible when I began my career, I believe many of us would have carried less unspoken pain. We might have been able to process our losses instead of burying them under deadlines and deliverables. We might have shown up more authentically as professionals and as people.

Today’s corporates have an opportunity to do better. To replace silence with support, formality with empathy, and stigma with understanding.

Because at the end of the day, productivity is not about how much we do, it’s about how whole we feel while doing it.