Time off for work-related stress

This is common and not unreasonable. But it’s not a vacation. The time has to be spent seeing a therapist or psychiatrist regularly, and likely starting appropriate treatment. You can’t guarantee your patient will be paid, and you can’t guarantee their employer will agree. Give them a note to get them through their first psychology appointment, and forward any further paperwork from the employer to their mental health professional. (I’ve been burned when it turned out that an employer required the mental health professional to complete the paperwork — but only found out long after the fact.)

Two things to hold in mind at once. This category does get abused; an HR friend of mine says it’s common for people on the verge of being fired to use it as a ploy for a few more weeks of salary, and you’ll develop your own sense for that. But psychiatric conditions are also FMLA-qualifying and ADA-covered on exactly the same terms as physical ones, and the person in front of you may be genuinely ill. Handing the paperwork to the treating mental health professional resolves both concerns at once: the patient who needs care gets it, and you are not certifying a level of impairment you didn’t evaluate.