Content uploaded by Robert M. Gordon
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Robert M. Gordon
Content may be subject to copyright.
Gordon, R.M. (2009), Money, Masochism, Narcissism and Indifference, Pennsylvania Psychologist
Quarterly, September Issue, 69, 8, 10 and 14.
Money, Masochism, Narcissism and Indifference
Robert M. Gordon, Ph.D., ABPP
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in 2002 based on his research with
psychologist Amos Tversky (1979) that showed that people make money decisions more
on psychology than economics. They refuted the thinking of the cognitive psychologists
who consider people as logical information processors. Rather they found that when
future consequences were uncertain, people shifted to relying more on their biases than
objective data. That is when people were most likely to view their beliefs as reality -
what Kahneman called “the illusion of validity.” For this, Kahneman won his Nobel
Prize in economics (rather than psychology…which is another story of bias).
Before Kahneman and Tversky’s research, Fenichel (1938) wrote that the will to
become wealthy is natural, but it is often compromised by unconscious irrational
conflicts. He reviewed the cultural, familial, personality and traumatic contributions to
feelings about money. Fenichel believed that in the unconscious, money can represent
everything that one can take or give such as: food, feces, penis, potency, love, protection,
care, pride, indifference, offering, renunciation, weapon, sexual aggression, etc. The
conscious conventional mind wishes to deny these embarrassing associations, but careful
listening to how people deal with money often reveals the validity of these insights. We
see this when people marry for money, seduce with money, horde money, use money to
punish or control others, or reject money as if that made them more virtuous.
Recognizing the unconscious associations to money helps us to understand how people
can be so self-defeating about something so important.
Spinella and Lester, (2005) in their research on money and personality found that
people who scored higher in neuroticism scored higher in financial impulsivity and lower
in motivational drive, organization, and planning. This research illustrates that aspect of
neuroticism in wanting gratification without the reality testing, planning and hard work.
Weber, Rangel, Wibral and Falk (2009) using the fMRI, found that areas of the
ventromedial prefrontal cortex (associated with the processing of anticipatory events)
exhibited the money illusion suggested by Kahneman. They found that subjects did not
make money decisions based on what money can buy but based on biased reasoning in
the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. (Next time you can say to someone after his or her
foolish purchases, “Where was your ventromedial prefrontal cortex?”)
We know that manic individuals will spend as an expression of their grandiose self and
religious ascetics will take a vow of poverty as an expression of their self-sacrifice and
spirituality. Money can be an expression of one’s personality, represent parts of the self
or become an over compensation for more threatening intimate resources such as love
(think of the film “Citizen Kane”).
In my dissertation research (Gordon, 1975) I found that students’ view of money had a
lot to do with their childhood. Students who grew up in love-poor families valued money
much more than those who received a lot of love as children. This was true whether their
families were poor or were well off. Students from love-poor families may have been
damaged in their capacity to exchange love, but not so in their capacity to exchange
money. They may have learned to value money as a substitute for love, as a means of
security, or as an indication of their personal worth that they were not able to gain from
intimacy. Children who are well loved and taught how to manage money, later develop
the capacity to enjoy both money and love.
I also found that there were those intellectuals who were indifferent or less focused on
money issues. These Platonists valued the life of the mind over wealth. For example,
Einstein was able to do the math for quantum physics, but lost much of his Noble Prize
money in bad investments. Nickerson, Schwarz, and Diener, (2007) found that
individuals with strong financial aspirations are socially inclined, confident, ambitious,
politically conservative, traditional, conventional, and relatively less able academically.
Many people become psychologists out of their love of ideas or their wish to help
others. Money is often not their most important consideration despite the many years of
education, training and economic pressures. Some therapists may take noble values too
far and be considered what the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM Task Force,
2006) calls, “moral masochists.” Such individuals often feel guilty receiving and seem to
gain a sense of worth through giving, self-deprivation in service to others. The
countertransference guilt over charging a good fee for sessions, or charging for late
cancellations conveys an unhealthy message to patients.
Narcissistic therapists might over focus on the acquisition of appreciation and fees.
While therapists indifferent to fees convey an otherworldly interpersonal cocoon, as
though their relationship has nothing to do with money for a service. This suggests a
seductive or emotionally parasitic involvement. After all if the therapist is uncomfortable
with money, then how is the patient going to work through these issues?
Weissberg (1989) noted that patients more easily talk about sexual positions than their
actual financial position. This may involve a transference based on the fear of being
exploited as well as the expectation that one does not pay for nurturance. The therapist’s
countertransference conflicts might inhibit a therapeutic exploration of fantasies and
conflicts about money. Weissberg points out that the main financial negotiations between
therapist and patient are setting a fee, modifying the fee to reflect changing conditions,
collecting the fee, and dealing with missed hours. Although Weissberg warns that money
matters are roads to other irrational conflicts, never the less, the financial arrangement
between therapist and patient is essentially a business agreement, in that therapists are
selling their training and time as a means of support.
Patients often express their resistances and transferences in scheduling and payment
conflicts that are highly rationalized. That is when patients might benefit from a careful
combination of reality clarifications of the treatment agreement, the value of treatment
and when ready, an interpretation their unconscious fears of the treatment situation.
References
Fenichel, O. (1938). The Drive to Amass Wealth. Psychoanal Q., 7, 69-95.
Gordon, R. M. (1975). The effects of interpersonal and economic resources upon values
and the quality of life. (Vol. 36, pp. 3122). US: Univ Microfilms International.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. . (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decisions under risk.
Econometrica, 47, 313-327.
Nickerson, C., Schwarz, N., & Diener, E. (2007). Financial aspirations, financial success, and
overall life satisfaction: Who? and How? Journal of Happiness Studies, 8(4), 467-515.
PDM Task Force. (2006). Psychodynamic diagnostic manual (PDM). Silver Spring, MD:
Alliance of Psychoanalytic Organizations.
Spinella, M., & Lester, D. (2005). Money Attitudes and Personality. Psychological Reports,
96(3), 782.
Weber, B., Rangel, A., Wibral, M., & Falk, A. (2009). The medial prefrontal cortex exhibits
money illusion. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United
States of America, 106(13), 5025-5028.
Weissberg, J.H. (1989). The Fiscal Blind Spot in Psychotherapy. J. Amer. Acad. Psychoanal.,
17:475-482.
