Obviously it’s not nice to make fun of people for going to therapy, but ‘wealth therapy’ is still a relatively new thing so it’s fair game to take the piss out of.
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The Guardian recently did a piece on wealth therapists and basically, this is the kind of thing we’re dealing with according to therapist Clay Cockrell who does “gluten-fee walk and talks” (huh?) with those facing “wealth issues” in New York:
We are trained to have empathy, no judgement and so many of the uber wealthy — the 1% of the 1% — they feel that their problems are really not problems. But they are. A lot of therapists do not give enough weight to their issues …
On how being super rich can be super lonely:
The Occupy Wall Street movement was a good one and had some important things to say about income inequality, but it singled out the 1% and painted them globally as something negative. It’s an -ism… I am not necessarily comparing it to what people of colour have to go through, but … it really is making value judgement about a particular group of people as a whole.
The media is partly to blame for making the rich “feel like they need to hide or feel ashamed”:
Sometimes I am shocked by things that people say. If you substitute in the word Jewish or black, you would never say something like that. You’d never say — spoiled rotten or you would never refer to another group of people in the way that it seems perfectly normal to refer to wealth holders… People say: ‘Oh, poor you.’ There is not a lot of sympathy there.
Comparing it to coming out as gay:
Wealth is still one of our last taboos. Often, I use an analogy with my clients that coming out to people about their wealth is similar to coming out of the closet as gay. There’s a feeling of being exposed and dealing with judgment.
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Erm… yeah. I’m sure the LGBT community sees it that way too. Still I guess Biggie had a point— more money, more problems. Except I’m sure most people would gladly take on the trials and tribulations of being a billionaire than having to deal with the problems that arise out of not being a billionaire.
Whatever the case, it’s tough to feel too sorry for them. Especially when you then get a story like this one where a guy overcame his depression issues by going on a week-long coke bender with a crew of Mexican prostitutes. Problem solved.
