NOCD

1.0

May 30, 2026

Recommend

CEO approval

Business outlook

Pros

I wish I could recommend working here because the mission is important and the therapy helps a lot of people. There are talented therapists and employees throughout the company who care deeply about the people they serve. Unfortunately, the culture makes it difficult to recommend.

Cons

Stephen Smith often talks about wanting to end the mental health crisis. That message rings hollow when so many of his own employees experience chronic stress, burnout, extreme micromanagement, unrealistic expectations, poor work-life balance, and communication that can be demeaning or dismissive. These are not isolated issues or the result of a few bad managers. They are the direct result of the culture Stephen has created and continues to reinforce throughout the organization. The culture revolves around keeping Stephen happy, and fear is often used as a tool to maintain that dynamic. Employees quickly learn that approval matters more than collaboration. This creates an environment where politics and self-preservation often outweigh teamwork, trust and effective communication. Employees are often made to feel that spending time with family, setting boundaries, or prioritizing their own well-being reflects a lack of commitment to the mission. For a company in the mental health space, the gap between what is said publicly and what employees experience internally is hard to ignore. It is also difficult to overlook the lack of female representation in senior leadership despite a workforce that is overwhelmingly made up of women. I do not believe that is accidental.

NOCD Response

Thank you for this feedback. We appreciate you highlighting the dedication of our talented clinicians and the importance of our mission to provide impactful therapy. We hear your serious concerns regarding burnout, leadership dynamics, and the cultural alignment within the organization. It is troubling to learn that you felt the internal environment valued compliance over collaboration, or that setting personal boundaries was viewed as a lack of commitment to our mission. We also hear your specific note regarding gender representation within senior leadership, and we recognize the impact these experiences have had on your perspective of the company. We apologize for the frustration, lack of support, and dissatisfaction you experienced during your tenure. As an organization driven by a Member First mindset, we operate with a sense of Consistent Urgency to transform the behavioral health landscape and make evidence-based care widely available. To achieve this, we hold ourselves deeply accountable to outcomes and metrics. While this level of transparency can be uncomfortable and can sometimes be felt as micromanagement, tracking these data points is what allows us to secure payer coverage for specialty treatment. This is how we collectively break the status quo of misdiagnosis and ensure our members get the effective care they deserve. Our mission and our operational methods are deeply connected, and while confronting the areas that need daily improvement is challenging, it is how we responsibly scale our impact for the people who need us most. To address these concerns constructively, our leadership team is committed to evaluating our metrics to align with the well-being of our clinicians and non-clinical employees. Additionally, our People Team remains committed to refining our internal processes to foster a more balanced, transparent, and supportive environment for our colleagues. We strive to foster an internal environment that truly honors our mission from the inside out, and we will continue utilizing feedback like yours to drive continuous, meaningful improvement across all levels of leadership.

Short therapy sessions but excessive data tracking - Therapist NOCD Employee Review

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