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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Step1 who wrote (26492)	12/15/2007 7:42:45 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 219863

Book explores emotional side of money BY CLAUDIA BUCK SACRAMENTO BEE Sacramento, Calif., psychotherapists Peter Cole and Daisy Reese have worked with dozens of clients, helping untangle emotional conflicts that all too often were rooted in unhealthy attitudes about money - how to spend it, save it or squander it. The duo - partners in marriage as well as business - developed an expertise in "financial psychology," an emerging field that's a fusion of spiritual, emotional and financial well-being. Their new book, "True Self, True Wealth: A Pathway to Prosperity," published last month by Atria Books and retailing for $16.95, is really two books: The first half details the emotional baggage we inherit from our parents and the havoc it can play with our financial lives as adults. The book's second half is packed with sound, practical, common-sense ways to achieve financial security, primarily written by Cole, who's a University of California Davis medical school professor and a chartered financial consultant. Following their recent Pacific Northwest book tour, we sat down with the couple in their midtown offices to talk about their approach. Q: There are a million books out there on financial planning. What makes your "financial psychology" approach different? Reese: You can't really separate psychology and money. There are a lot of books with very sensible advice about investing your 401(k), but people often wind up [in trouble] because of their internal tug-of-war over money issues. For many people, the families they grew up in and the messages they got about money . . play out to their detriment as adults. Cole: Financial psychology is about assisting people with the 'soft side' of the financial equation, which sometimes goes unaddressed in financial books or financial planning. But it's the area where people often get into the most difficulty, dealing with relationships, kids, spending boundaries. Q: Why is money such an emotional issue? Cole: People carry their emotional baggage with them. There are many people I work with - self-made business people who grew up poor but are now well-to-do - who still have that sense of fear they're going to be financially needy again. They have trouble feeling security and satisfaction from what they've earned. Reese: Many people define themselves by their salary or how much they have in the bank. If that doesn't measure up to what their parents expected or what their next-door neighbors are making, many people get down on themselves, get depressed, feel incompetent. I have a client who's a victim of the subprime mortgage debacle. His payments keep going up, he can't get refinancing, and he's really terrified he's going to lose his house. . And it was because he was trying to keep up with the Joneses in his personal life. He came in for emotional therapy, but part of that involved his financial issues. Q: What's the biggest roadblock you find among your clients, when it comes to spending and credit? Cole: The biggest mistake I see is a failure to appreciate that lending institutions think very differently than consumers. While consumers tend to think about the size of their monthly payments, the lending institution is thinking about how much money it will make over the life of the loan. Consumers need to be well-informed and not get seduced by promises of easy money. Q: Your book categorizes people by the kind of money traits inherited from their parents, what you've dubbed "money scripts." There's the hoarder, the coupon clipper, the gambler, the victim, the prince/princess, etc. What's the money script you see most often? Cole: People always see themselves in the "Procrastinator," someone who's anxious about money. The procrastinator keeps that anxiety at bay by avoiding dealing with money issues. . . I had one client who was so anxious that she had not opened the statements for her retirement accounts for years. We spend the first few sessions simply working together on opening her statements and understanding what they meant. The other one we commonly see is the co-dependent. Usually it's a woman who puts a lot of her energy into propping up her husband but doesn't assert her own financial needs. I work with so many couples - baby boomers - where the wife doesn't even know how much money they have.