Hedge fund managers and other high-rolling executives are paying thousands of pounds to help them deal with mental health and relationship problems fuelled by working from home.
Dr Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and executive adviser normally called on to boost boardroom and trading floor performance, said she has become a marriage counsellor to Londoners struggling to navigate the “groundhog day” of post-lockdown work.
She began offering clients relationship advice after finding the usual high-end treatment services she refers them to were fully booked.
Hedge fund analysts, bankers, traders and private equity fund managers are paying £25,000 for courses, with counselling on Zoom, FaceTime and walk-and-talk sessions using WhatsApp audio.
It comes after Office of National Statistics data revealed nearly 20 per cent of British adults were estimated to be suffering from depression this summer.
Dr Swart, a former psychiatrist, said “chronic low-grade” anxiety had fuelled poor motivation and could even be lowering immune systems due to increased levels of the body’s stress hormone cortisol.
She added that some clients headed back to work early on, finding they were the only person in the office.
Her research has included the grey area between motivation and addiction, with clients working excessive hours, over-exercising and spending too much time on social media.
She said one member of a client’s team had never worked from home and was overwhelmed, saying he “didn’t really know how to do it”.
Dr Swart said: “The nature of the issues has moved away from top performance. It’s all mental health work. Where there’s a relationship issue that was in the background, that has come under a magnifying glass in lockdown.
"I cannot refer to relationship therapy because they’re all full, so I’ve had to do a bit of that as well. Home-schooling has also been a source of stress.
“Most of my clients are in Mayfair, and Mayfair is dead. Most people are saying they’re not going to be back in the office this year. At a small hedge fund, one way of coping with it was to go to the office and be by yourself.
“I’ve had one client who’s mentioned suicide. Another client has not seen another person for six months. Many of them describe the scenario as ‘groundhog day’, because you wake up and every day’s exactly the same.”
