Prince Harry’s ‘therapy’ comments at San Francisco event could be at odds with prior claims

While speaking at an innovation conference for business leaders in San Francisco Wednesday, Prince Harry suggested that he never heard the words “therapy” or “coaching” when he was growing up in the royal family.

His comments at the Masters of Scale summit, in his role as “chief impact officer” for the mental health coaching firm Betterup, could be interpreted as Harry piling on more criticism of the British royal family for allegedly failing to address the mental health needs of its members, the Daily Beast reported.

While no video of the event has been made public, attendees took to Twitter to share the substance of what Harry said during his surprise appearance during an on-stage conversation with Betterup’s founder, Alexi Robichaux, the Daily Beast said. In turn, people on social media took issue with the Duke of Sussex suggesting he received no help for his self-declared mental health struggles while he was a working member of the royal family.

They pointed out the times that Harry spoke openly about starting therapy while he was still a popular member of the monarchy in order to process his grief over the 1997 death of his mother, Princess Diana. At one event in 2020, Harry reportedly said he started therapy in his 20s, when he still would have been in the army.

Much of the debate about Harry’s therapy comments Wednesday came in reply to a tweet from Doron Weber, vice president and program director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Weber shared: “Harry says growing up in the royal family & then spending 10 years in the military, he never heard the words ‘therapy’ or ‘coaching.’ Then the blinkers came off and his life changed.”

Prince Harry says growing up in the royal family & then spending 10 years in the military, he never heard the words “therapy” or “coaching. Then the blinkers came off and his life changed. w ⁦@Arobichaux⁩ of @BetterUp⁩ & ⁦@reidhoffman⁩ ⁦⁦@mastersofscale⁩ pic.twitter.com/OD4veku8yE

— Doron Weber (@DoronWeber) October 20, 2022

In reply to Weber’s tweet, many noted that Harry worked with his brother, Prince William, and sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, on co-founding the Heads Together initiative to tackle stigma and “change the conversation’ in the U.K. on mental health.

“We know that’s not true, he worked with William and Catherine on a special program,” someone said in reply to Weber’s tweet.

In 2017, Harry also gave a widely praised podcast interview, in which he said that he began to process to heal from his mother’s death several years earlier. During the interview with the U.K. mental health podcast “Mad World,” Harry said his older brother William had been the catalyst for him seeking help. Harry also suggested that his healing, encouraged by William, had involved going to see a therapist.

“I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well,” Harry said in the interview.

Harry said his brother, and other people around him, told him he needed to get help. “My brother, bless him, he was a huge support to me,” Harry said on the podcast. He said William told him, “This not right, this is not normal, you need to talk about this stuff and it’s OK.”

Someone else on Twitter noted that Harry was quoted as saying he started therapy at age 28, when he spoke at a J.P. Morgan conference in Miami in February 2020, shortly after he and his wife Meghan Markle announced they were stepping away from royal duties and moving to the United States.

Someone at the JP Morgan event told the Daily Mail: “Harry told the audience he started seeing a therapist at 28 as he struggled with the trauma caused by his mother’s death. He said he felt trapped as a royal although he said that relationship with the Queen was still OK.”

If Harry indeed started therapy at age 28, that would roughly be in the year 2012, three years before he left the army.

Questions about Harry’s timeline for seeking mental health help first emerged in 2021, after he and Meghan made the explosive claim to Oprah Winfrey that the royal family was indifferent to her mental health struggles. The American former TV actor said she was told that her need to seek inpatient care for suicidal thoughts wouldn’t be possible because it “wouldn’t be good for the institution.”

Several months later, Harry told Winfrey on their Apple TV+ series on mental health, that he only began therapy after meeting Meghan 2016 — that she helped him to finally realize he needed professional help. He admitted that, in his 20s, he abused alcohol and drugs because he had never processed his grief over his mother’s death.

“It was meeting and being with Meghan,” the Duke of Sussex told Winfrey. “I knew that if I didn’t do therapy and fix myself, that I was going to lose this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with.”

Following Harry’s conversation with Winfrey on “The Me You Can’t See,” royal observers wondered if Harry was shifting his narrative about how and when he began therapy in order to create a new image of his post-royal life with Meghan. Some expressed concerns that his shifting narrative could undermine the importance of his message about mental health and the need to end stigma.

“A lot of people are upset that Harry is conveniently erasing what he has said before and giving us this new narrative,” Vanity Fair royal correspondent Katie Nicholl said at the time.

During his appearance at the Masters of Scale summit, Harry appeared to mostly discuss how a focus on mental health can help companies and their employees perform better. He also talked up the work of San Francisco-based BetterUp, which provides “mental fitness” services and life coaches to corporate clients.

“I have a coach. I wish I had two,” Harry said, according to a tweet from the Financial Times’ West Coast correspondent Dave Lee.

Mercy Corps CEO Tjada D’Oyen McKenna tweeted that Harry talked about how bosses need to help unlock the potential of their employees. According to McKenna, Harry said, “From a boss standpoint, if you see your people as numbers, you will fail. You can’t treat them as numbers, but folks who need a human connection to fire on all cylinders.”

“From a boss standpoint, if you see your people as numbers, you will fail. You can’t treat them as numbers, but folks who need a human connection to fire on all cylinders.” Wise words from Prince Harry! #MastersOfScaleSummit

— Tjada D'Oyen McKenna (@Tjada) October 20, 2022