19 May, 2015

Financial Therapy




A new concept called Financial Therapy

I had attended a session by Rick Kahler, a Fee-only financial planner from the US.

The session was not about financial planning in the conventional sense at all. The session was trying to take into account the behavioral aspects of clients and trying to understand why a client behaves in a certain way.  Sometimes people behave in a certain way based on the messages they have received throughout their life – which he called life-scripts.

We have life-scripts which we act out, just like an actor in a drama would. Unfortunately, unlike in a drama, the consequences are real!

Our life-scripts may prevent us from investing in certain asset classes ( like Equity – if the script is “Stock markets are gambling dens” ). But this can have deleterious effect on our finances & may be self-defeating!  That takes us to the area of financial therapy.

Change cannot be brought about by external persuasion. It has to come from within. So we explored what can possibly be done so that the client realizes the limiting belief and the consequences and gets that “Aha” moment.   

Interesting for financial planners like us… Excited about this new knowledge which we can use for our client’s benefit!

See his interview on Bloomberg ( this interview is very general in nature though and does not talk about financial therapy at all) -


A orientation on Financial planning, psychology & Financial therapy -

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