Maybe it's Suze Orman on CNBC saying the American Dream is dead or maybe it's just the ongoing ramifications of a financial crisis that doesn't seem to quit and the deep sense of dread many Americans continue to suffer in an economy they don't feel has pulled back to normal-no matter what stock markets, economists or financial experts are telling them.

Whatever the reason, this widespread anxiety, among poor and rich alike, has created an opening for a new kind of financial planning that combines both the best tools of relationship management with the insights of psychology into the deep-rooted scripts and anxieties many people have over issues related to money.

The result has been a new organization, the Financial Therapy Association (FTA), that is attempting to bring together best practices in both fields. While this might seem like some kind of bad joke to the uninitiated, the fact is it is a serious endeavor and growing fast. So no one should be surprised if they continue to hear more about this innovative organization. Indeed, representatives of the association are scheduled to speak at the upcoming National Association of Personal Financial Advisors' annual conference in May.

This nascent organization, just over a year old, hopes to give itself empirical research to back up the assumptions it was founded under through an academic journal. Meanwhile, young grads are coming out of loosely related university programs with both counseling degrees and CFPs. They are the new face of financial planning.

But it is in the membership of the FTA that established planners-and psychotherapists-are meeting and discussing issues of common interest. "Believe me, I understand. I was a numbers guy," says member Rick Kahler, a CFP licensee, about how "crazy" all this might sound to the average planner.

But Kahler, an early advocate in promoting the use of psychotherapy to improve his practice and client relationships, says it's particularly useful when a client gets stuck. Why is it, he asks, that many clients don't fully execute the financial plan they have worked so laboriously to come up with? Similarly, when clients know they shouldn't be overspending or have some other behavioral issue around money, why do they find it so difficult to change? "They know the behavior change they need to execute, yet they don't make it. They still execute the behavior that gets them into trouble."

Kahler likens it to the behavior of any kind of addict. "The same psychological principles are at play around money. It's the same issues, playing out in a different venue."

Kahler, a successful Rapid City, S.D.-based fee-only planner with more than $150 million under management, is the author and co-author of four books based around the idea that people have unconscious "scripts" about money that influence their behavior with it. And Kahler, who also gives workshops and an online course, says it doesn't matter if someone is bankrupt or has tens of millions of dollars. Everyone has some script-whether it's from being a child of the Great Depression or feeling unworthy of what they've earned or inherited or feeling they have a right to buy everything they want when they want.

It's often exhibited through a sense of shame around money. He sees it in clients commonly when they come to his office for the first time. "They're often apologetic. 'I know this isn't a lot of money,' they say, and it doesn't matter if they have $500,000 or $5 million. When they come in, their fear is that I'm going to expose them for fraud or see their bad decisions about money and it just goes on and on."

Kahler came to his awareness about the psychological issues underlying successful planning the hard way: through the jarring emotional pain of a divorce in the early 1990s. He went to therapy to help him deal with the difficulties. In doing that, he says, "I just saw that financial planning principles could be put into a therapeutic situation to really address issues going unaddressed." And vice versa.

So, he says, if it makes planners feel any better, most therapists are even worse when it comes to dealing with money than planners are in dealing with psychological or emotional issues. "The [therapeutic] profession itself has a lot of projections onto money that are not good; the profession itself has a poverty mentality. Their professional money script is, 'Money is evil; money is unimportant; everything it touches is corrupt."

But if that's the lowdown on therapists, what about planners? Do they refer difficult clients to therapists? The answer is no, of course. "I've found planners think of themselves as the quarterback and they never make a pass to the therapist because they don't understand what they do. They have erroneous projections. They've never been to one, and the biggest reason is they view it as a negative referral. Telling your client they're really screwed up and they're abnormal" is not good for business, Kahler laughs.

Yet hardly a week goes by, he says, when he doesn't hear another planner talk of firing an out-of-control client. "They don't want to be there when the train goes off the tracks." Firing a client may be the best way of dealing with him or her, but he says there are other tools in the tool box. One is to train yourself to be a better listener. But when you have someone-like a Charlie Sheen-then it's time to bring in a bigger set of skills. Thus, the therapist.

And if planners think there's more liability in having a therapist on referral, it's simply not true-there's more liability issues in a portfolio, Kahler says. "I think that's an excuse to hide behind fear in this area of the unknown. Therapists are sued a lot less than planners. It's a scary area for planners, just like therapy is scary for a lot of people."

So Kahler brings his staff therapist into an early session with each new client. "I call him my financial coach and I tell the client they may never see him again. But if we get stuck, we'll call in Dave whenever we need him." Kahler believes it's important not to send the client off to a therapist, but to be in the room with both. "If I'm in the room, I can bring up clarification and objectivity [around money issues] that moves the process exponentially faster." Kahler says he is "continually amazed" at the issues that show up in financial planning, everything up to and including sexual abuse.

This kind of talk may make planners very uncomfortable, but Kahler, who says he developed the first workshop on this subject in 2003 and has done more than any planner in the nation on these issues, says clients almost never object. "There has to be trust and willingness, but our clients are really telling us stuff they're not telling their priest, their therapist or their spouses. I've found very little if no resistance to their being in a room with a therapist because they've already exposed their most shameful stuff-and money is the most shameful topic there is."

While Kahler is known for his beliefs in certain circles-his client, singer Wynonna Judd, famously went public about her problems around money-at the same time he says hardly any client ever comes to him for this specifically. "It's widely unknown."

Another high-profile planner who uses an in-house therapist is Chicago-based Cicily Maton, who runs Aequus Wealth Management Resources with her daughter, Michelle. Maton, who manages more than $105 million and is also a fee-only planner, says her early work with women's financial needs and divorce-underlined by her own difficult divorce-opened her eyes to the fact that peoples' decision-making in times of transition is impaired.

"It didn't take me long to realize it wasn't just people going through divorce," Maton explains. "Everyone is affected, regardless of whether they acknowledge it or know it. When we're under stress, we lose the ability to make good decisions."

Of course, this is often when people decide to see a planner: during or after a divorce, loss of a job or a spouse's death, when they're getting married, and so on-just when there's cognitive slippage, she says. Maton works with clients to explain what's happening, and education is a part of that, including asking questions in ways that are not intrusive yet help open them up. "Working with a therapist deepens and enhances that."

For about the last three years, she has had psychologist Dr. William Marty Martin on staff, and they tell clients he will be part of the initial planning process. "This is the way we do it: We normalize it. People don't react one way or another," Maton says. "When people are referred to us, it's almost always through someone who's been through the process. So it's an enthusiastic referral. People self-select."

Maton says Aequus tries to identify clients' financial priorities-which may mean redoing the estate plan rather than selling the house-and she tries not to push clients faster than they're ready to go. Some clients can take three to four years to get comfortable with the planning process. One came religiously every quarter to go over her plan until one day she finally looked at Maton and said, "Oh, my God, I get it!"

Now she comes in every other year. "We really try to make no judgments and have no expectations," which she concedes is a hard thing to do. "It's their money and their life. If they can relax a little, it gives them comfort."

While Maton recognizes big transitions cause stress, she believes that everyone in America is now living through times of major ongoing stress-whether it's globalization, turmoil in the job or stock markets, or the Middle East and oil-and it's cumulative. Maton spoke at the first conference of the FTA last September, and she and Martin are writing a book to give a sense of their planning process to a wider audience-including those who don't have access to a planner.

Dr. Sonya Britt is president of the FTA and an assistant professor of financial planning at Kansas State University, one of the few universities with a financial planning degree program. Britt acknowledges that it is more socially acceptable to see a financial planner than a therapist, but planners should be interested in this emerging field, even if they're not ready to fully integrate their practices just yet.

They need to be aware of how to deal with the emotional side of money, she says. "People are trying to find someone to help them with their problems," Britt explains. "It could be a gambling addiction issue or other personal issue that affects their financial goals."

The FTA, which is still developing its standards of practice, qualifications and policy points, doesn't take a stand on fee-only versus commission planners. That's the same policy Kansas State has for its financial planning students. "We don't have a preference," Britt says.

The Kansas State program has a clinic to do research projects-the results of which should end up in the FTA journal-and it does see lower income families who get free services. Ironically, poorer clients tend to be more open to seeing a therapist in the course of their financial planning because of social services they've been exposed to, she says. As for the financial side, most Americans "weren't normally trained in money management in high school or college, and dealing with money issues is a mind-set thing that is not necessarily related to income."

While the organization has a lot of work to do-she notes how long it has taken the financial planning world to set standards and best practices-nevertheless, its short-term goals are to educate the public of its existence, both through the planning and the psychotherapy communities. The association, with a membership fee of just $65, passed its first anniversary in January. It had 110 attendees at its first conference and hopes to double that this coming September. Currently, the FTA has about 200 paid members and another 100 non-paid members. And 70% of the total are planners, not psychologists. There may be hope yet.

Help For Planners
Where can planners go who want to explore these psychological issues further? One obvious place is the FTA and its psychologist members. Judith Gruber is a former corporate banker from New York who became a therapist. Her clients have ranged from the presidents of corporations to the unemployed. "We all have problems with money around relationships and spouses-we all carry that, voices from our past," she says. Additionally, people have a lot of pride around money, so they're afraid to ask questions about it or don't really want to know what their money situation is. Planners have to understand how overwhelming money can be for some people, she says.

"People feel like money defines them. That is the core of the issues. If we can feel abundance, we are defined by ourselves. Feeling good about ourselves takes precedence over how much money we have, regardless of how much we have." Gruber teaches an online webinar called the Dynamics of Money, which a number of planners have taken. "It's understanding the energy of money and how we deal with our images and beliefs."

FTA member psychotherapist Dr. Richard Trachtman became interested in money issues when he had a financial analyst as a client in the 1980s who was conflicted between the enormous amount of money he was making and the lack of personal time it left him. This interest was piqued by his marriage to Jan Hopkins, a former sidekick of Lou Dobbs on CNN's Moneyline. Trachtman is happy to work with more planners. He has one book out on the subject, Money, Work, and Love, and has another text, Money and Psychotherapy, for therapists coming out this April. "I'm very committed to trying to open this area for people to think about," he says.