Shrinks with cash on the couch After completing his doctorate in clinical psychology in 1999, Brad Klontz had $100,000 of debt in student loans. I was desperate to get out [of] it. At the same time I saw my friends making six figures a year trading [tech] stocks. So he sold whatever valuable possessions he had left and invested it all in internet stocks. Just a few months later the tech bubble burst, and so too did his investments. Tormented by his financial losses, he questioned why someone like himself - "a reasonably intelligent guy" - would do something so stupid with his money. The field of psychology had all but ignored the topic of money so I began interviewing my family members. In doing so he came to realise that his investments were a result of "generations of money beliefs." His grandfather saw his family lose all its money when the banks collapsed in the Great Depression and consequently never put a dollar into a bank, hoarding it in a box in the attic. Dr Klontz's mother inherited the same beliefs. Dr Klontz decided that in order to become wealthy he would kick against his family's behaviour. "I became much too aggressive in what I call a dysfunctional pendulum swing," he says. Doing this family research set Dr Klontz on his career path: today he is a financial psychologist, one of a small number of professionals helping financial planners, investment advisers and therapists understand the motivations, beliefs and prejudices that individuals have about money. Finance has been long neglected by therapists and psychologists. As Jamie Traeger-Muney, who describes herself as a wealth psychologist, puts it: "We liken ourselves to sex therapists in the 1960s. Then there wasn't a discussion of sex in therapy. Deborah Price Deborah Price, who trained in Jungian psychology before becoming a financial adviser, says that when she used to observe destructive behaviours among her clients, her managers would tell her to "leave it to the therapists." When she turned to therapists for advice, they were unable to help. "They would say, "money is the ultimate taboo."" Dr Klontz believes there is a psychological barrier among therapists. In my research we have found that mental health professionals are significantly more likely to endorse money-avoidance beliefs, which include negative beliefs about the rich and an overall negative association with money. Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, postulated that the strongest symbolic connection is between money and faeces. It seems like this belief has persisted and Freud's professional descendants don't want to touch it. The 2008 financial crisis intensified interest around the psychology of investing, according to Dr Klontz. Perhaps for the first time in history, there was a collective acknowledgment that psychological factors have as much of an impact on the stock market, if not more, than any fundamental or technical analysis of the value of equities or debt. If people don't have to carry baggage or guilt then they can get clear about what they want to do in the world and make a difference Jamie Traeger-Muney Dr Traeger-Muney, originally from Ohio but based in Israel, specialises in treating inheritors from all over the world and believes the vilification of the "1 per cent" in the aftermath of the financial crisis has caused psychological problems for the very rich. The disdain for the wealthy has increased. The media is very quick to put wealth-holders in a bad light. It might be fun to villainise the wealthy but it doesn't serve our world as a whole. People don't want to stand out as the "1 per cent," they want to stay below the radar." Dr Traeger-Muney, who has previously worked as a psychologist on the wealth team at Wells Fargo, is not expecting sympathy for her clients: "Am I saying are my clients having it as bad as someone in the [public housing] projects? No, of course I'm not. However, she insists that shaming the rich does society no good. If people don't have to carry baggage or guilt then they can get clear about what they want to do in the world and make a difference. Inheritors of wealth have their own special set of problems, she argues. They feel they don't deserve money and have shame and guilt. They feel isolated and closeted. Even the language we use to describe such people is mocking, she points out. There are so many negative words attached to inheritors: trust-fund baby, silver spoon, spoiled brat - there's no positive associations. It is something she knows from personal experience. Born into a wealthy family that owned a chain of roller-skating rinks, she used to feel embarrassed as a child when friends came to her house and commented on its vast size. She felt strongly that shame was counterproductive. She cites the example of one client - an environmentalist - whose family had made money through lumber, a business that was antithetical to her client's views. The shame over her inherited wealth meant that she felt stuck in her life and unable to do anything productive with the money. Dr Traeger-Muney encouraged her client to explore the family business. In doing so the inheritor discovered that her great-great-grandfather, the business founder, had reserved land that had to remain untouched by lumber merchants. This helped the client to examine ways she could help the family business counteract the negative environmental effects of lumbering. Ms Price coaches therapists and financial planners to identify behavioural problems with money as well as seeing individuals. She believes many people sabotage their financial success because they feel uneasy about wealth. One of her clients is an entrepreneur who has lost and made money many times. Ms Price says that his behaviour is influenced by his parents, who were socially liberal and anti-establishment and did not rate wealth highly. Reacting to his parents" values fuels his moneymaking drive but at the same time he has internalised their attitude to money and does not think he should have it. She works with couples a great deal because, she says, "normally, couples therapy doesn't help the pain around money." Typically, she sees couples where one person spends and the other saves. "It could be that the spender is doing so out of compensatory love - they may be hard-wired due to their background to think that "if you love me, you give me things" and perceives the other's frugality as a lack of love." Once couples understand the behaviour, Ms Price says, they "realise their partner's not doing something to hurt them." Rates charged by financial psychologists range from $175 an hour to $500 an hour or a percentage of a client's assets - although Ms Price says she has a sliding scale for those on modest incomes. She adds: "If someone says it's expensive then I will ask: "Have you thought how much a divorce costs?" "