ABSTRACT
People's attitudes toward money are deeply ingrained and have their roots in the earliest history. Achieving a level of comfort with money attitudes is equally important for the work with the patients. As with many of life's fundamental issues, money is both real and symbolic. On a physical level, money is the 'greenback dollar'. On a social level, money is an agreement between and among people to honor a particular medium of exchange. On a spiritual level, money can be said to be energy made visible. This chapter focuses on the emotional meaning of money. Almost all of us have feelings of guilt, shame, and anxiety around money. Based on the experience in the family of origin the authors have developed a particular representation of the self as a financial person, a representation of money as an object, and an affect state linking the two.
