EAPA UK at MAD World
We’re excited to announce that we are gold sponsors of the MAD World Summit 2025 in London on 9th October.
We’re exhibiting at the event and so please pop by our stand to say hello.
At 2.05pm, our Chair Karl Bennett will be hosting a panel session, joined by Cliff Lee (MRSPH) Nicola Jagielski David Elliott and Juliana Kawenga MBACP to discuss ‘Reimagining EAPs: The Future of EAPs in Today’s Workplace’ – we’d love to see you there too
We need to fear “AI psychosis” says Microsoft head of AI
Cases of “AI psychosis” are growing, according to Mustafa Suleyman, head of AI at Microsoft.
In a number of X posts, Suleyman warned of the influence of AI chatbots on people who have started to believe in the ‘human’-like sentience of AI: “There’s zero evidence of AI consciousness today. But if people just perceive it as conscious, they will believe that perception as reality.”
Artificial relations
Reportedly there are rising numbers of cases where AI chatbot users believe they have formed friendships as well as romantic relationships, along with examples where AI has convinced people they have “superpowers” and to throw themselves into ambitious schemes and business investments — because the software is designed specifically to encourage repeated use and engagement; rather than any balance or objectivity, the chatbots will validate and support the ideas and arguments of the user.
In future, health experts suggest, GPs may well check on patient’s use of AI chatbots, in the same way they check on other forms of addiction, such as alcohol and gambling.
Keep it clear
EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “So many of our relationships are mediated digitally — at work or at home we stay in touch via a device and software. So in some ways it’s a natural step that the relationship in part becomes wholly digital. It’s not easy to see or feel the difference.
“But in the field of mental health and support we need to be very clear about the roles for human professionals versus the input from AI, what it can and really can’t do. There are real dangers from AI validating negative thought processes or just giving inappropriate advice.
“Human contact and human professionals need to stay at the core of the EAP counsellor offering. The role for AI needs to be defined — and regulated — in supporting role, for follow-ups and check-ins around making the most of that human advice.”
Mental ill-health is driving up cases of discrimination and tribunals
More employees are being classified as having a ‘disability’ — including people with conditions like stress, anxiety and depression, menopause and ADHD. The kinds of formal classifications that, in turn, are providing the grounds for claims of discrimination and workplace disputes.
In the past year, Acas data shows how workplace disputes involving claims of disability discrimination have risen by 31%. Around one in six of all disputes are now based on issues of disability.
Productivity vs health
The Equality Act 2010 says an employee should be considered disabled if they have “a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on [their] ability to do normal daily activities” — and this is increasingly being seen to include psychological ill-health.
At the same time, commentators suggest there’s been a change in the emphasis of HR in recent years because of financial pressures and constraints: a shift towards a focus on maximising productivity, which has meant less flexibility around work routines and arrangements. And with greater awareness of rights and expectations of support, this has led to more grievances and tribunal cases.
EAP partnerships
EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “Not dealing with the challenges of work-related stress has far-reaching implications — for the workplace environment, for engagement and productivity, and clearly also for workplace relationships. In other words, providing support through EAP services on mental health isn’t a nice-to-have, but fundamental to operational success.
“The context has obviously changed when it comes to how people dealing with stress, anxiety and depression are classified, and the kinds of ‘adjustments’ that are expected to be provided as a support. The most effective measures that an employer can provide will always be paying attention to the design of work roles from the beginning, doing what they can to balance the stresses with recognition and rewards, along with awareness of mental health and providing access to support and conversations that catch issues early.”
Will the demand for healthy ways of working transform the nature of work?
In a study by Ernst & Young among 10,000 workers aged 18-34, the most important indicator of ‘success’ was found to be physical and mental health (51%). By comparison, having wealth was only found to be one of the major markers of success by 42%.
The researchers point to the findings as a signal of how Generation Z want something very different from their working lives — and that will have “profound implications” for employers and ways of working: “Previous generations accepted personal sacrifice at work in exchange for the promise of long-term job security and career advancement. Gen Z no longer trusts that bargain.”
Fear of burn-out
Generation Z — around 27% of the global workforce now, and due to form the majority by 2035 — have seen the impact of modern ways of working on their parents and other relatives and want a different experience, say Ernst & Young. 34% had “deep fears” about the future.
They are wary of the impact of work in terms of burn-out; they’re not confident about their ability to buy a home, or to accumulate wealth. They are less interested in staying with a single employer for long periods; they don’t believe they will necessarily find stability and certainty in their careers. Instead they want to prioritise health and wellbeing, and most value employers who will support those needs.
EAP partnerships
EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “As we keep seeing through our work, health and wellbeing is becoming more of a priority for all generations, not just younger people. We’re all looking for the right balance between the challenges and rewards — and it’s imperative for HR and employers that they make workplace wellbeing a priority, a foundation to how the organisation works.
“But as EAP providers we still see our services being used to deal with crisis situations, to help repair serious issues with stress and anxiety and depression, when what’s needed — and what this kind of research confirms — is more attention to creating healthier workplaces. Workplaces where there’s an understanding of the pressures involved with different roles and targets, and there’s support and flexibility to minimise the impact. More organisations should be working in partnership with their people and their EAP to pick up on trends and issues early, and collaborate together on finding and building that healthier, smarter balance.”
Should AI chatbots give mental health advice?
More cases of problems with the use of AI chatbots as ‘therapists’ are being reported as people look for immediate sources of mental health advice and feelings of being listened to and supported. People are becoming more used to ‘chatting’ with AI software, and see chatbots as a practical alternative to long waiting lists for NHS talking therapies. The NHS itself provides access to patients with lower level mental health concerns through the Wysa AI software.
But there are now more examples of where conversations have gone wrong. In the US, a man committed suicide after an AI chatbot persuaded him it would be a way of helping to ‘save the Earth’ from man-made environmental impacts. One chatbot, Character.ai is currently the subject of a legal case with the parents of a 14-year-old boy who was allegedly encouraged to take his own life by the software. The National Eating Disorder Association had to suspend use of its chatbot after it started to recommend limiting calorie intakes.
The ‘Yes’ service
Academics warn of flaws in the way AI chatbots are ‘trained’ on the basis of large language models. They ‘learn’ from general models of what mental health is, what ‘good’ mental health looks like, and its opposite, and imitate patterns of typical conversations.
Professor Hamed Haddadi at Imperial College London describes AI chatbots as being like inexperienced therapists — and a particular issue is how they are designed to keep people chatting, and so will be relentlessly supportive: “so even if you say harmful content, it will probably cooperate with you”.
At the same time, the use of chatbots is being seen to provide instant reassurance and positive impacts for some. A Dartmouth College study showed a 51% reduction in symptoms of depression among those with anxiety, depression or an eating disorder compared with a control group.
Hard limitations
EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “Not everyone has a straightforward option when it comes to sharing worries and thoughts, or doesn’t feel able to share personal issues with friends or even family. AI chatbots are an easy answer. But the limitations are obvious — they can’t provide human reassurance, a human presence or the same kinds of human accountability. And we know it: in a recent YouGov survey, only 12% of people thought an AI chatbot would make a “good therapist”.
“Ai chatbots can be trained and programmed to take on specific roles, and that can include becoming more sensitive to mental health conditions and the nature of mental health conversations. And most importantly, ‘understand’ its limitations and the need to step back from advice and signpost to genuine and professional sources of mental health support. “The use of chatbots only highlights the huge importance of EAP services and access to human contact, human professionals and their experience.”
Why AI-based wellness apps may not be safe
New work by Professor Glenn Cohen at Harvard Law School and Professor Julian De Freitas, Harvard Business School, has questioned the use of AI chatbots in supporting mental health.
At a time when access to professional advice and counselling around mental health can be limited, more people are turning to AI chatbots for psychological support. Natural language processing and machine learning advancements have led to a rise in popularity of AI-enabled wellness apps — the apps draw on large language models such as ChatGPT and Claude to offer what looks and feels like genuine human interaction, and appears to provide personalised advice and emotional support.
The paper ‘The health risks of generative AI-based wellness apps’ in Nature Medicine points to a combination of problems that constitute a real danger to people and their ongoing mental health.
“Chatbots for mental health and particularly ‘wellness’ applications currently exist in a regulatory ‘grey area’,” say Cohen and De Freitas. “Indeed, most generative AI-powered wellness apps will not be reviewed by health regulators. However, recent findings suggest that users of these apps sometimes use them to share mental health problems and even to seek support during crises, and that the apps sometimes respond in a manner that increases the risk of harm to the user, a challenge that the current US regulatory structure is not well equipped to address.”
In their audit of several popular AI companion apps, around 3 to 5% of user interactions included explicit mental health content, with a significant proportion involving urgent issues related to suicide or self-harm.
They found examples of AI chatbots responding in inadequate ways to mental health crises: both failing to provide appropriate support and also providing inappropriate responses. In one case, a chatbot responded to a user expressing suicidal thoughts with the flippant message, ‘don’t u coward’. In another, a father of two was reported to have taken his own life after a six week dialogue with an AI chatbot that encouraged the environmentally anxious man to take his own life as an act of ‘saving the Earth’.
“We argue that generative AI app makers should proactively unearth, pressure test and disclose any health-relevant edge cases that could arise from use of their apps and explain the steps they have taken to mitigate these risks,” says the paper. “In an ideal world, this might become a regulatory requirement and would require a shift in how we categorise these apps in regulatory terms, not as ‘medical devices’ but perhaps as ‘generative AI with health uses’.”
The authors call for urgent action from health and wellbeing regulators to ensure there is oversight on how AI wellness apps are classified and monitored; for app developers to take greater responsibility for safety — such as informing their users about the limitations of the chatbots (“warning, in simple language, that their app does not feel any emotion, care or concern for the user, nor is it capable of therapy”); by including tools and links to access professional help, and putting more investment into optimising AI models to handle mental health crises more effectively (“such as switching the conversation to clinically validated therapy exercises if it is detected that the user is in crisis”).
Our EAP: Pam Whiteley, Reward Manager at household products manufacturer McBride
“McBride launched its EAP in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, aiming to support colleagues during those challenging times. We’ve continued to offer this service ever since.
“Our EAP provider has global coverage, allowing all colleagues to access the service from day one, along with their immediate household members. This encompasses over 3,400 colleagues across nine European countries, three countries in Southeast Asia, and Australia.
“The McBride EAP features a 24/7 telephone helpline offering unlimited support for colleagues dealing with stress, anxiety, relationship issues, or other personal and work-related challenges. Additionally, there’s an online hub for information and advice, and colleagues can access licensed therapists, coaches, and other mental health professionals for up to six sessions of counselling or coaching per issue, per year. These sessions can be conducted virtually or face-to-face, depending on the issue and the preferred type of counsellor, such as a female who speaks Dutch.
“Currently, usage of the EAP has been relatively low. Two-thirds of recent queries have been related to legal issues, wills, and divorce, while the remaining third have been related to counselling. Our challenge lies in raising awareness about the EAP and the wide range of services it offers. We’ve encountered some technical difficulties ensuring everyone can access the app, and we’re working on effectively communicating the benefits of the EAP to colleagues through various channels such as emails, webinars, posters, TV screens, noticeboards and during the onboarding process.
“We receive numerous updates from our EAP provider relating to a wide variety of topics such as mental health, ADHD, and trauma, and the materials are consistently excellent. We have a global account manager and one of the good things about our EAP is that they have local managers who can provide more insights on what’s available locally.
“We’re striving to find the best way to disseminate EAP-related information within the business, which can be complex given the number of countries involved. Recently, I held a session with all the local HR Managers to talk about the EAP offering and discuss how we can collaborate to effectively share this information in their regions and ultimately increase engagement levels. I’m looking forward to seeing the impact of this work in our next quarterly review, where we can not only evaluate what has happened, but can identify further opportunities to increase usage levels further.”
Should EAPs commit to long-term support cases?
EAPs have stepped up to meet the challenges of a new era of demand for mental health support. They’ve had to, even if that hasn’t meant additional budget to develop services.
The context has changed: with the increased awareness and willingness of people of all ages to talk about their mental health, to look for professional help — and via an EAP, expect to have access to counselling. This change to the wider culture has been accelerated by the use of social media, and the combination of pressures and encouragement to share stories and speak out this has led to. It’s no surprise then, that it’s among younger people that there have been sharper rises in problems with stress and anxiety. And those cases can have much wider implications for families, affecting parents in particular, who then may have their own issues with mental wellbeing.
EAPs have been evolving quickly to continue to keep in meeting the changing needs of employers, ensuring high quality, end-to-end services, and the best possible clinical outcomes for employees. With limited availability of support via the NHS or other public services, the work of EAPs has become crucial for the lives of individual staff, and in turn, their employer.
The evolution of EAP services has included more 24/7 and digital services that guarantee immediate access to advice, and so that cases can be triaged. That’s been backed up with forms of earlier engagement and intervention to help pre-empt worsening issues: more awareness campaigns, more psychoeducation, self-management interventions, ICBT, as well as access to short-term counselling. What matters in this situation is that EAP providers keep to EAPA UK guidelines and best practice standards in terms of delivery.
In the past, EAPs would have signposted people in crisis situations and with serious, longer-term mental health conditions to public sector services. But this can mean delays in access to services like counselling and CBT — and more employers are looking for their EAP partner to provide ongoing support.
Investment is needed from governments into the kinds of preventative care that will reduce pressure on services, as well as reducing waiting lists and ensuring more immediate access to counselling for more urgent cases. In the meantime the issue is the extent to which EAPs and employers work together to fill the gaps, making sure employees with ongoing needs aren’t left without support. EAPs have taken on the important job of encouraging earlier conversations and interventions to address lower-level concerns. And there’s the opportunity for partnership over the provision and funding of high level clinical interventions over time.
But the question for the coming years will increasingly be around the limits to what an EAP can and should deliver.
Dr Emelina Ellis, Chief Clinical Officer, Spectrum.Life
Why do women take twice as much time off as men for mental health reasons?
While, on average, male employees in the UK took 0.44 days a year off work because of stress, anxiety and depression in 2023/24, this figure rises to 0.91 among women, according to the Health and Safety Executive’s latest labour force survey.
This equates to a total of 16.4 million days of absence from mental health related causes. Employees dealing with mental health issues took an average of 21.1 days off each year, well above the average.
Menopause, caring, and insecurity
Asked to explain the disparity between women and men, charity and campaign groups have highlighted the additional pressures facing women, in terms of unequal pay and discrimina-tion.
They also point to the greater prevalence of absence among older women (affected by the symptoms of menopause, and the combination of caring responsibilities, both for children and parents), and those between 25 and 34 who were more likely to be feeling the pres-sures from insecure work roles.
The problem with silence
EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “The HSE data confirms that mental health problems are the largest cause of absence among employees in the UK. The detail provides important evidence for HR in terms of the need for particular support among women: more flexibility, more understanding.
“There is also the issue of what the numbers don’t say. Just because men don’t take time the same amount of time off doesn’t mean they’re not dealing with similar levels of stress, depression and anxiety. The critical fact is that rates of male suicide continue to be much higher — all suggesting that men don’t do anything about their problems, they’re bottled up, and that tends to lead to more serious cases over time. So again, targeted awareness campaigns are needed.”
Health benefits keep staff in work
Around 11% of employees were off sick with mental health-related illnesses in the last year, says research from Simplyhealth among 2,000 UK workers and 500 HR managers.
Minor illnesses and muscle or joint pain were more common as causes of absence, but these were typically for only one or two days at most. For mental health issues, 27% were taking two weeks or more — a significant difference in terms of the impact on workplaces, co-workers and management.
What makes the difference
A key finding from the study was how HR had seen the impact of EAP services and other health benefits. Around half of the HR managers offering particular wellbeing benefits claimed they had seen lower levels of absence.
In spite of this evidence, the researchers also found that only 40% of those surveyed overall said they offered an EAP or health plan.
Catching early
EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “EAPs help prevent minor worries about mental health turning into more serious and long-lasting conditions. So it’s important that as many employees are possible have access to these kinds of independent services, so they can raise issues as early as possible, and not only have to use an EAP for access to counselling.
“Given the potential for stress and anxiety to turn into substantial periods of absence, dwarfing the impact from minor illnesses, there is a clear business case for investment into health benefits that pre-empt problems, that are preventative rather than leading to clinical interventions.”