Murdin - How Money Talks

The idea for this book came to me because of the emphasis on money that prevails in the consumer society in which we live, especially since the global financial recession of 2008. As a result of general uncertainty, people from many shades of political opinion focussed thought and emotions on wealth, wealth creation, and how people achieve and retain their personal wealth. An unprecedented level of media and individual attention has focussed on the morality or otherwise of the means of acquiring wealth. In the UK, two groups have received public scorn and anger. Politicians were tried and convicted for claiming undeserved and in some cases illegal levels of payments for expenses. This was ascribed to greed. The second group consisted of bankers, who irresponsibly sold mortgages and other products that could not be sustained by the people concerned from their income. The bankers too have been accused of greed in seeking to maximise their profits without paying attention to the effect on their customers. Both of these groups have caused much pain and distress. The bankers in particular have been accused of causing global financial difficulties. Whether or not this is a fair representation of where the responsibility lies, it has given rise to subsequent arguments about who is responsible for too much borrowing: is it the borrower or the lender? The doubt about this certainly reinforces Polonius dictum that we should be neither a borrower nor a lender (Hamlet, Act I, Scene iii).

Questions about the morality of borrowing and lending take us back to the whole basis of modern consumer societies. What underwrites or underpins the money that we use to buy and sell? We no longer expect national banks to hold gold to the value of the currency circulating, although it is noticeable that in times of trouble people rush to buy gold as it is seen as a safe haven. The whole concept of a safe haven implies that money makes us feel safe and without it we feel helpless and impotent. We must also put it in a safe place so that we can keep it and find it. This led to my interest in the developmental implications of the individuals relationship to money: in what sense does it take over from the primary relationship with the breast or early feeding? There has been thinking about the historical development of money and its meaning and use in each culture but I have not found much attention being paid to the development in each individual of the attitude to money that is apparent in the adult.

The book will therefore attempt to look at these general themes using examples taken from novels and from clinical experience. The main illustration is the case history of Alice which is told in Part I. As is required by the codes of ethics of psychotherapists, this is a fictional case history, but it does draw on actual experience, mine and other peoples. The case of Alice is written in detail, developing her story and the story of her relationship with getting and spending and with what else matters to her. The subsequent chapters then look at the aspects of the symbolism, use and management of money with Alices experience as an illustration.

The clinical importance of money is hard to exaggerate. It is an essential part of the therapeutic process. It has to be discussed at the outset of therapy, and then at periodic intervals subsequently as invoices are given out and money handed over. Some therapists charge a fee in each session, so every individual session will bring up the management of money. For all therapists, payment is a revelation, showing the way in which the patient relates to money as reality and as a symbol.

The patient also reveals his values and the hierarchy in which people are valued at one level and property and goods at another. The patient has an economy in which there is a rate of exchange. One of the purposes of this book is to consider the process of exchange and how it interacts with valuing. Since money is by its nature a symbol and its referent is constantly changing, the therapist can derive a significant and useful amount of information from the patients treatment of money in the consulting room. She can also see how her own pathology interacts with that of her patient to produce the unique quality of each relationship.

In Part II the main areas that are considered are the history and symbolism of money, the management of money and its implications for the individual. Chapter Seven deals with the ways in which we use money to reveal the pain and suffering of which human beings are capable. Money is related closely to control, omnipotence, and the ability to hold on or to let go. For these reasons it plays a part in many mental states that are generally grouped under the heading of obsessional traits. Chapter Eight takes the questions about how these states of mind develop and considers the developmental processes for an individual. Chapter Nine considers the individual in a social context where money operates at all levels to link and separate us. The last chapter of this section, Chapter Ten, considers social questions about the funding of psychological treatment as a question of national and also personal importance.