It was a haircut well worth $2,000—at least according to one of neuropsychologist Judy Ho’s patients. As California’s lockdown continues, she’s watched agog as some folks in her Los Angeles-based private practice continue to flout it.
“Because of their wealth, some of my clients have felt largely invincible for a long time, but now they feel so powerless,” says Ho, who’s also a tenured professor at Pepperdine University and whose client base is largely Angeleno 1 Percenters. “How do you take back that power? You pay someone top dollar to do your hair.” (She notes that the client didn’t consider how desperate unemployed stylists must be to break rules for a cut ’n’ color.)
Other anxiety-stricken clients have opted to move into residential treatment centers to hunker down, only to find themselves chafing at separation from their families and the regulations under which they’re expected to live there. “They say, ‘I’m paying $90,000 per month to stay here, and I can’t go outside to take a walk?’”
Another client—who opted to technically self-isolate at home, rather than check into one of those facilities—is proving more troublesome. She’s so high-profile that she can’t be left alone and requires bodyguards. Yet she doesn’t socially distance from them, insists on going out regularly for drives, and won’t wear a mask. Two of her security team have quit.
“She’s a bit selfish, but it’s more that she doesn’t really understand the direness of the situation. She is an on-and-off substance abuser, too, who might be high when all these people are quitting [their jobs] around her,” Ho says. “We had a nurse who used to go and do her substance abuse testing every morning—you know, draw her blood and take her urine. She just quit, too, because my client wouldn’t respect social distancing. Now we’re desperately trying to hire someone else to go there.”
Coping in the current pandemic is tough in many ways, including psychologically, so it’s no wonder that many therapists such as Ho have seen business surge as clients turn to them for guidance amid the unknown. Doctors who specialize in high-net-worth patients are encountering problems distinctive to their clients, and so they’ve found ways to ensure their own self-care and psychic soothing.
Ginger Poag, who’s based outside Nashville and whose client roster centers on senior figures in the country music industry, estimates that she’s 20% busier than normal. Now she takes time to do her yoga nidra (a kind of guided meditation) daily, rather than three times a week, which had been her routine. The practice is believed to function like a turbocharged nap; devotees claim that an hour or so might refresh you as much as several hours’ sleep.
Poag’s client base felt the impact of the downturn immediately, because they’re not earning money from touring or shows. They often have the added stress of dependents such as parents they support. Still, for those with several homes, many have adopted the solution of rotating among their houses by private jet.
“They will wait while the staff comes in to clean, get groceries, do all the housekeeping” at one location, Poag says. “They’ll wait a certain amount of time, maybe three days, with no one entering the house, then they’ll move there.” Once bored with those surroundings, they’ll charge staff to tee up another location—the Palm Beach, Fla., house, perhaps—and repeat the process.
Sanam Hafeez’s clients are also worried about houses—although in her case, the Manhattan-based therapist is hearing more about vacation rentals. “One patient is neurotic that she won't find a ‘great’ Hamptons rental, because all the prices will be sky-high because people in New York City have already decamped to the Hamptons. She is worried that the house she and her husband will be able to afford will be too modest to show her friends,” Hafeez says.