Erin Frey on Therapy

Frey says anxiety made it harder to think clearly, make decisions, and work well with her co-founder. Situations that normally would not bother her, such as doing an interview, began to feel overwhelming. She decided to seek therapy after noticing these changes were keeping her from doing her best work.

Frey describes therapy as a process of working with a therapist toward a goal and understanding thought patterns, emotions, and everyday behaviors. She initially wanted help with confidence, but her therapist identified stress and anxiety as the bigger issue. Regular sessions can help people change behaviors and build skills for navigating emotions and thoughts.

Frey uses a founder’s imagined drive to a Sand Hill Road pitch meeting as an example of catastrophic thinking. A therapist can help examine whether there is evidence for those fears and consider what would actually happen after a failed pitch. In this example, the founder could approach another investor rather than treating one rejection as the end of the startup.

Therapy gave Frey a safe person to talk to about problems she did not want to bring to her co-founder, family, or friends. Knowing she was on a path toward improvement also helped before her stress had fully eased. As her anxiety decreased, she began to see difficult problems as challenges she could solve.

Frey encourages people to seek help when stress, anxiety, or depression persists, and says she wishes she had started therapy earlier. She sees these pressures as common for founders facing uncertainty and expectations from themselves and others. She argues that, like dental checkups or physicals, therapy can be a way to invest in the brain founders rely on.