Money and Gender – Therapists and Clients: Still the Last Taboo for Us Therapists?
By Olivia Mellan
© Olivia Mellan, 2007. Posted by Permission.
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In 1982 I realized that money was the last taboo for us and for our clients. When the subject of money came up in therapy, it was as if there were family and other ghosts sitting all around the room – for my clients and for me as well, and no one was talking about them. Out of this thunderbolt of a thought, money harmony work was born. To begin your own journey toward what I call money harmony, I would invite all of you to accept the useful fiction that we all have a lifelong relationship to money that is either in or out of balance. Unless we work to transform this relationship to a more harmonious one, having enough (or more than enough) money won’t solve the problem. Overspenders will overspend more wildly, hoarders will keep more money under the mattress or in a checking account, worriers will worry more, and money monks, who think that money is dirty, will feel guilty about coming into more money. Money harmony is being in balance in your moneylife – realizing that money is just a tool to accomplish some of life’s goals – not Love, Power, Happiness, Self-Worth, Freedom, or even Security in old age. If we use money to express our values and our integrity, and learn to be a good steward, we will experience serenity and security in all areas of our life – not just around money and its meanings.
All our parental, societal, religious, peer group and other messages and experiences in our childhood mold us to either imitate these models or make vows never to be like our overspender dad or our worrier mom, making us careen to the opposite pole. In neither case are we free to use our money in a way that reflects our values and our integrity (that’s what I call “money harmony.” Instead, we believe in Money Myths that hamper our ability to make good decisions. If money equals Happiness (with a capital “H”) or Love or Power or Self- Esteem/Self-Worth or Freedom or even Security, especially in old age, these beliefs become so loaded for us that we can’t use money as a tool to accomplish some of life’s goals.
Therapists in general tend to be what I call “money avoiders” – and some of us are “money monks.” If we don’t believe that money is dirty and will corrupt us (and some of us former or present activists, idealists, hippies, or those who espouse this as a religious message), then at least we believe that we should be doing our therapy work for love and not for money. Many of us look askance at others who use words like “the business of therapy” – somehow business has become a dirty word in our lexicon – and that was way before Enron and other scandals. So we tend to procrastinate about collecting fees, hesitate or avoid raising our rates, have trouble doing paper work that would get us paid in a timely fashion. My friend and colleague, Lynn Grodzki, has written wonderful books and articles, devoting much of her coaching practice to helping therapists who were resistant to seeing their work as a business, to embracing this idea and becoming more financially successful and more fulfilled in their worklife. My money harmony work is oriented in this same direction.
Gender Differences For You And For Your Clients
Since I begin work as a feminist therapist in the 1970s, specializing in women’s issues, couples work, and, later, business “therapy”, I have been keenly aware of the sociocultural differences between men and women and how they are raised when it comes to money and success. In my keynote speeches to financial planners and other organizations, I’ve outlined twelve differences between men and women when it comes to money. In the last few years, reading Leonard Sax’ (2005) book, Why Gender Matters, I’ve come to realize that many of the differences I thought were coming from nurture were in fact hard-wired. Here’s a summary of some of these differences.
It turns out that boys experience stress, aggression and risk differently than girls. The boys’ nervous system actually gets a thrill out of risk-taking (e.g., the video game where you have to keep a car on the road or it will crash) – while girls experience this as scary and painful. No wonder when it comes to investing and other forms of risk-taking, men are more comfortable with higher risk than are women. Boys and girls see differently too: boys have more M receptors to rods (this makes them more aware of movement and direction), while girls have more P receptors to cones (which makes them more sensitive to the texture, color, nature of the object.) I asked Leonard Sax if this could explain why male investors focus more on the movement and direction of the stock (Is it going up? Is it going down?), while women are more interested in the nature of the company (Is it socially responsible? Are there women on the board?, etc.) He said this made sense to him, and the financial planners I speak to seem to agree with him.
When it comes to power and decision-making around money, research from the ‘90s showed marked differences. I believe that because of the way boys and girls are raised – often primarily by mothers, though of course, this is changing – that sons who separate from their mothers need to separate more rigidly, because of the sex difference. Thus, they have more rigid or solid boundaries than do daughters. Daughters who separate from the same sex parent can separate more gently – and thus have more porous boundaries and sometimes more mushy, merged boundaries. In addition, Deborah Tannen (1990) was right – men do tend to see relationships as one-up and one-down since they are socialized to compete and win; while women see relationships as cooperative and learn to be accommodating – seeking win-win solutions. This shows up in adult women when they try to negotiate for a raise – they are worried about seeming too aggressive, (remember they find aggression painful and scary, not exciting like some men do); and they want the boss to be happy at all costs. In the same family the research indicates that when men make more money than their wives, they think they should have prime decision-making about how the money is spent; whereas women who make more than their husbands (30% of American marriages are in this category) want shared, democratic decision-making. Interestingly enough, in gay male couples if one makes more, they both think he should have the major voice in how the money is spent. In gay female couples, shared decision-making is the rule. Of course, these are generalizations – sometimes dangerous, at other times valuable in helping us understand our clients and ourselves.
In addition, because men have more solid boundaries, they are more prone to unilateral decision-making when it comes to money (and other things as well); whereas women will want to share decision-making, to consult their spouse, and expect the same from him. The fight goes like this: The husband comes home with a new big-screen TV, or a new car and says, “Look what I got us?” and the wife looks hurt and shocked and says, “How could you have bought that without consulting me?” The husband, equally hurt and stunned, retorts “What are you, my mother? Do I have to ask you for permission?” Again, this stems from his world view of relationships often being one-up or one-down; while the wife feels misunderstood and is lobbying for teamwork and shared decision-making among equals – not the strong suit of the male.
When it comes to therapists setting fees with their clients, I would speculate, based on these gender differences, that especially the women therapists have trouble raising their fees and collecting delinquent fees. Why? First, many women therapists want to be cooperative, not elicit anger or aggression – want everyone to be happy. More women are Jung’s feeling types, and feeling types seek the harmony of the whole. I would wager that more male therapists don’t mind risking some disharmony or even anger on the part of clients when they raise their fees, set business policies about missed sessions, or collect fees from late or delinquent clients. This is my clinical observation – I don’t pretend to be a researcher who can document my perceptions.
In the arena of merged vs. separate money, I have found that many men in committed couple relationships want to merge the money, and often, women want some separate money. This seems to run counter to the perception that women are good at merging, and men are better at keeping their boundaries intact. I believe it is precisely because of this, and due to the different intimacy challenges of men and women, that they have different needs when it comes to merging and autonomy. In general, I find that men are better at withdrawing when things get heated or conflictual — going into their cave, as John Gray has said; so since merging is difficult for them, wanting to merge the money is in part a loving expression of wanting more connection. This desire may be entirely unconscious, but I am convinced that it fuels men’s desire for joint money. For women, on the other hand, who tend to overgive, overmerge and lose their identity in relationships, having some separate money is a symbol of healthy autonomy – the sign of a healthy self, from which they can merge. Many older women who come into some money through inheritance, and who have been in relationships where all the money was merged, can all of a sudden feel that they’d like to keep some of that money separate. Their husbands are often confused and hurt by this, fearing secret divorce plans. In fact, I believe it is just a growing awareness that having something in their own name fulfills this need for healthy autonomy. In the 25 years that I have been speaking about this subject, this is the one point that makes men and women go from fighting about the difference, to understanding it and becoming more soft and vulnerable to one another’s needs.
In addition, there tends to be an underconfidence in many women, who may have grown up believing that “they wouldn’t be good at this money stuff,” and if they were lucky, “some man – or someone else – would take care of it for them. Even my super-feminist mother and feminist father, who told me I could become anything I wanted, told me in no uncertain terms that I would be lousy at money and investing, and if I were lucky, I’d marry some wealthy man who would take care of it for me. And unlike the women who had math anxiety, I got a perfect score on my math SATs. Notwithstanding this fact, I felt intimidating by the “technical” side of money – and have been climbing out of that hole for years. Many young boys, on the other hand, are told that they would be good at understanding money, even though they are often not taught about it explicitly. So my financial planner colleagues tell me that some men tend to be overconfident when it comes to money and investing; and women tend to doubt their own expertise and intelligence. A study of junior high and high school students in the mid-1990s, done by Liberty Mutual, measured their knowledge of math and money and their self- perception. The boys said “We know a lot”; the girls said “We don’t know much” – and they performed at exactly the same level of expertise!
In a similar vein, the tendency for men who succeed at investing is to credit their own cleverness; if they lose money, they blame their advisor, bad luck or destiny. When women make money investing, they credit the cleverness of their advisor(s), good luck, or the stars; if they lose money, they blame themselves.
I wonder whether male therapists who need to learn more about the “business of therapy” have this overconfidence edge. The good side of this is that it propels men to believe they can master whatever they need to learn; the downside is that some men tell themselves they are more confident and expert than they truly are and are thus resistant to ask for help. I wonder similarly whether women therapists, on the other hand, may feel so intimidated by money, investing or the business side of their therapy practice that it creates their own kind of overwhelm and avoidance.
When men and women have moneytalks, the preponderance of Jung’s thinking types in men mean that they want to talk about the “facts” not the “feelings;” where women (who are more often Jung’s “feeling types”) want to talk about the process, our feelings, and our goals. I teach the couples I coach or have seen in therapy that with empathetic and respectful communication tools, it is important to talk about the feelings first, to lighten the emotional load, and to understand both of their short, medium and long-term goals, alone and together. Then, when the couple moves on to the “facts”, the budget or spending plan, they can negotiate more clearly to accept a plan that works for both of them.
How can you use and understand these and other gender differences? For a fuller discussion of all the gender differences around money that I’ve been observing, read my essay “Gender Matters” in the September 2005 issue of Investment Advisor magazine (www.investmentadvisor.com). You can help your clients see where these apply, when they do, and help them build a bridge between two different cultures.
And when it comes to your own therapy practice, whether it’s setting fees, raising fees, collecting from late or delinquent clients/patients, understanding your own cultural conditioning and your own hard wiring will give you more compassion toward your weaknesses and, hopefully, more courage and strength to do what I call “practice the nonhabitual” in becoming more healthily assertive and balanced in your own moneylife.
References
Sax, L. (2005) Why gender matters: What parents and teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences. New York: Doubleday.
Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: women and men in conversation (1st ed.). New York: Morrow.
Olivia Mellan (http://www.moneyharmony.com) is a psychotherapist, professional speaker, money coach and business consultant in Washington, DC. Author of four critically acclaimed books on money and relationships, a video and a 2-CD set, The Secret Language of Money, she conducts teleclasses for therapists, coaches and financial professionals on Money Psychology and teleclasses for the general public on Men, Women and Money: Bridging the Gap. She has been interviewed frequently on the TODAY Show, Oprah, ABC’s 20-20, and nationwide in the print media. Her chapter, “Money Harmony: A Road Map to Financial Wholeness,” will appear in Peak Vitality, an anthology with Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Carolyn Myss, Melody Beattie, Alice Walker, and many others in January 2008.