A letter to financial therapists

This field has exploded from the time of its inception, and has continued to be a safe place for many of us who find a home in the healing of financial stories. It has been my professional home pretty much at the start of my career and what a home it is! I've met some of my closest friends here in financial therapy. My own money story has changed in this field, as have my money beliefs. What a time to be a "financial therapist"!

Those words carry a lot of emotional weight for many of us. "Financial therapist" is a title that many of us use and identify with. We put it in our marketing materials. They describe a process that differentiates us from other mental health practitioners, financial planners, and financial coaches. We go "deep" with money. We talk about money beliefs, money stories, financial traumas, and a host of things outside dollars and numbers. Our collective goal is to change the way people think, feel, and behave with their money (FTA definition).

I've seen some healthy debate (and some unhealthy) about the use of "therapist" as many in our field have not completed formal training as a therapist and are not licensed by some state regulatory board. Some advocate that the term "therapist" only be used by those with formal training as to protect the public from the misperception about what a professional does and doesn't have training in. Indeed, there are recent media mentions about the importance of titles, such as the distinction between a therapist and a life coach (https://people.com/sza-went-to-life-coach-thinking-they-were-therapist-8383979). In my own formal education getting my master's degree in couples and family therapy, my educators had strong feelings about the work of "coaches" who were just pretending to be therapists and doing harm to their clients. It is incredibly crucial that our field is upfront about what we have training in and where our expertise ends.

In the zealousness to project our expertise and protect the public, I fear we may have been a bit territorial about the title of "financial therapist" that we forget that a title does not protect us or the public inherently. How many licensed therapists have done incredible harm to their clients despite their expertise? I've personally have had wonderful therapists... and some that I've had to report because of how much they damaged me. While state regulation can revoke licenses, we cannot keep all harmful professionals out simply by a title. Let's face it, financial therapy is not a regulated term, and likely won't be for many years based on how slowly this type of regulation typically takes to be put in place. That means thousands of clients could meet with "financial therapists" with little accountability or oversight. It is probably happening right now.

I'd like to advocate that we do some "self-of-the-financial-therapist" work. Is this about protecting the public? If so, then how do we actually plan on doing that? Are we lobbying state legislatures on the use of that term? Are we willing to do that even if there are only a handful of professionals who even use the term to describe themselves? I wonder if part of us also want to protect the image of being an expert in something. My ego certainly gets a boost being able to say that I am one of only a few financial therapists in the country. My career has taken off from it. But there is a wiser voice inside that says, "No title can make you a competent or ethical clinician. You are either working towards that goal, or you are stagnant. A title does not protect you or the public from having to govern your own baser instincts.".

I don't mean to preach. I don't pretend to know the answers of how to talk about being a financial therapist. The field is full of much smarter people than me. I just want us to make sure that these discussions and disagreements don't paralyze us from doing the good we can do now.

I am for the eventual regulation of financial therapy. I am for protecting the public. However, there aren't nearly enough of us financial therapists practicing to be remotely worth the gatekeeping we seem to be doing with this name. Perhaps if there were hundreds of so-called "financial therapists" in each state we can have another discussion. Perhaps when FTA has years of experience certifying standards of work. We aren't there yet. CFT level 1 was only released in 2019 and levels 2 and 3 are not even defined or laid out yet. Most of us don't even know what we mean when we say we are financial therapists. If we are upfront with our clients about our personal limits, I don't think that's a bad thing. Sometimes, we have to give ourselves a label and see how it fits with our work for a while.

There are literally millions of people who can use our expertise. Let's not make them wait for services while we continue to debate titles. We have an ethical duty to do our best work now, not in 15 years when things are different. I certainly don't want to invalidate anyone's big feelings about this topic... I just think our big feelings are perhaps keeping us from getting financial therapy where it needs to be.