Financial self-sabotage Vicky Reynal describes how a psychodynamic approach helped a client understand his reluctance to pay o ff his student debt
S teve* contacted me for what I call fi nancial psychotherapy – the application of psychodynamic psychotherapy to understanding clients’ relationships with money. He explained that while overall he had an ‘OK’ relationship with money as he earned a good salary, didn’t overspend and was able to save, there was one area of his fi nancial life that felt impossible to deal with – his student debt. He would become anxious at the thought of it. He had made no attempt to repay his student loan, and it was sitting in an account with very high interest rates that he hadn’t tried to renegotiate. Steve had done well in his career in the arts. At 39 he was running a successful art magazine and also sold his own artwork through a number of galleries. However, it hadn’t been an easy path. At the age of 20 he had dropped out of business school, which he had only attended under pressure from his parents. His parents had wanted him to run the family business one day and were infuriated by his decision, insisting he reconsider and do the ‘responsible thing’ for himself and the family. As Steve resisted, his parents decided to cut him o ff fi nancially and withdraw their o ff er to pay for his education. Steve accepted an o ff er from a reputable art school, borrowed money from his uncle to cover his living expenses and took out a student loan to pay for art school, accumulating a substantial amount of debt at an early age. A few years later he found out that his younger brother was allowed to pursue his own passion and study journalism, with full funding from their parents. Despite becoming a con fi dent entrepreneur, Steve couldn’t confront his student loan and had fallen out with his uncle about the repayment
schedule for the money he had borrowed from him. He came for help to address the situation when it started to threaten his relationship with his fi ancée, Emma,* who felt the debt was holding them back fi nancially and otherwise. Symbolic Within a few sessions, it became clear that the debt was highly symbolic. In Steve’s mind it represented the injustice of his parents’ choice – how could they have been so harsh and controlling, tying their generosity to their choice of studies? How could they grant the freedom of choice and fi nancial freedom to his brother and not to him? The loan that sat accruing hefty interest charges represented the anger that Steve wasn’t ready to let go of. But there was a stubborn quality to Steve’s resistance to even calling the bank and asking for better terms – we needed to further unpack this seeming self-sabotage. There are many ways in which irrational and destructive fi nancial behaviour serves a psychological purpose. Often it is a way to cope with painful or seemingly unacceptable feelings, and sometimes it is a way of coping with feelings that belong to the past, rather than the present situation. One client realised he kept running out of money every month so he could call his distant parent and feel a degree of ‘being looked after’ when money was o ff ered. For another client overspending was about a separation anxiety: ‘If I became
fi nancially independent my parents would ask me to move out.’ Even a gambling addiction can be rooted in a desire to punish a neglecting parent, not uncommon in children of parents obsessed with work – as a reaction to the anger this has left them with they end up derailing their own career either as a way to de fi ne themselves in opposition to their parents or as a psychological reprisal. Self-sabotage can also be a way to address feelings in our romantic relationships. I have seen couples in which a partner’s out-of- control spending was a way of dealing with both the loneliness and the anger created by the other partner being increasingly unavailable. For those who are anxiously attached in relationships, full of fears of being abandoned, fi nancial self-sabotage is a way of unconsciously recreating an experience of feeling looked after and rescued, which provides the reassurance that the other person cares and won’t leave us. At the extreme end of fi nancial self-sabotage there is ‘ fi ndom’, the practice of voluntarily engaging in a relationship governed by money in which one is powerless and the other makes demands and humiliates the submissive party. In this masochistic dynamic there is pleasure in su ff ering. ‘Pain’ is fi nancial pain, the surrender of money. Unfortunately many who engage in fi ndom have a history of trauma, which might have left them with an inner sense of ‘badness’. The fi nancial self-sabotage in this case
‘There are many ways in which irrational and destructive financial behaviour serves a psychological purpose’
40 THERAPY TODAY MAY 2024
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