Title: What It's Like To Be ... A Financial Therapist
Headings: What It's Like To Be ... A Financial Therapist
More From Forbes
What It's Like To Be ... A Financial Therapist
LearnVest: So how is “financial therapy” different from regular therapy?
What types of financial-psychological problems do you typically encounter in your work?
How can you tell if someone might need financial therapy? Are there certain red flags?
Are there any personality types that tend to be more susceptible to financial-psychological issues?
Is financial therapy recognized by the psychiatric establishment?
What about financial literacy education? Could that work as a substitute for financial therapy?
Are there risks in allowing financial-psychological issues to go untreated?
Can you share an example of how you helped a patient overcome psychological issues related to money?
Are there any strategies that people can use to strengthen their own financial psychology?
What, to your mind, comprises a healthy approach to finances?
More From LearnVest

Content: Sound choices can only proceed from accurate information. However, financial literacy programs rarely focus on behavior, resistance to change or relationship issues. Financial literacy is certainly helpful, but a thorough understanding of compound interest will be of little help in treating a compulsive shopping addiction—or in aiding a person who sabotages her financial security because she was raised to believe that wealth is evil. Financial behaviors tend to be more emotional than rational. So we need to be more emotionally literate in addition to being more financially literate. Are there risks in allowing financial-psychological issues to go untreated? Psychological problems often manifest in money: An issue with self-worth will often show up as under-earning. Someone with narcissistic tendencies might assume an unsupportable amount of debt—and then resent having to be responsible for it. Money’s prominence means that, in some form or another, financial behavior becomes an expression of our internal psychology.