My research
High Achievers, Hidden Battles
Exploring the therapy experience for individuals in high-performance corporate environments.
What inspired this research was my own lived experience of leadership early in my career — I know first-hand what it feels like to lead, build and perform at a high level while quietly struggling underneath it. I also knew from the reading and investigating I had done, that this group of people — high achievers, dealing with mental health struggles — were barely present in the psychology literature at all.
That gap, to me, represented a broader belief that success must equal the absence of mental ill health. I know now from both my lived experience of corporate environments and my clinical work, that this is in fact very far from reality.
The numbers
The people we assume are doing fine are, statistically, among the most at risk.
of entrepreneurs report having experienced a mental-health condition.
Freeman et al. (2018), Small Business Economics ↗The why
Why this research matters —
Beyond the academic questions, a few things kept pulling me back to this work.
Success doesn't grant an exemption from suffering.
- 1This group is overlooked. We know far more about how to support elite athletes than corporate leaders facing the same pressures — even though the risk is just as real.
- 2Coaching is quietly standing in for therapy. Where struggle is stigmatised, people turn to coaches who aren't trained for clinical needs — and real support gets delayed.
- 3The people we assume are fine are, statistically, among the most at risk — and they deserve support that's actually built around how they live and work.
