‘It’s Just Bad News All the Time’: With the Tech Economy Buckling, Silicon Valley Therapists Are in High Demand

Over the last couple of months, David Mahabali has become highly skilled at lugging pillows, floor pads and blankets around the San Francisco Bay Area. He layers an assortment of them on the plush floors of McMansions in Woodside, spreads them across deep pile rugs in posh San Jose condos, and arranges them tidily in the living rooms of three-story Victorians in San Francisco. Once he creates a suitable den, and he and the client agree upon the rules of engagement, they make themselves comfortable in Mahabali’s “nest.” Sometimes they spoon, fully clothed, Mahabali resting his arm on his client’s shoulder or hip.

There’s nothing sexual about the setup; Mahabali is a professional cuddler for Cuddlist.com, whose job is to boost people’s mood via the oxytocin hits from physical touch. He averages four sessions a week, he estimates, double what he was doing last year. He attributes the increasing demand to the growing stress among the tech workers and startup CEOs he visits. Sessions often get emotional, he said, with some clients oscillating between weeping and laughter. People talk about feeling isolated, about juggling return-to-work policies and child care, and about their worries over having to lay off people—or being laid off themselves.

Of all the signs that Silicon Valley’s collective mental health is fraying, a boom in unconventional and alternative therapies may be the surest. People in Silicon Valley are seeking out succor in all sorts of places. Requests for psychedelic therapy, equine therapy (communing with horses to lower anxiety), laughter therapy, and cuddle therapy have soared in addition to demand for conventional talk therapy. The Bay Area now houses some 60-plus ketamine clinics, where patients undertake emotionally intense, drug-infused trips. The waiting list for ketamine-assisted therapy at Oakland-based Sage Institute is so long that the center’s website redirects people to its competitors.