Mental Health and Wealth: Consequences

Over the past several weeks, the global news has been replete with examples of grim consequences leading to change within powerful systems.

This backdrop has amplified my awareness of the role consequences play in my clients’ journeys toward mental health and relational well-being.

Two examples in this regard include a middle-aged daughter with an undiagnosed bipolar disorder who ran through a 40 million Euro inheritance. Her parents acknowledged she started displaying elevated emotions starting in early adulthood, but lacked the clinical sophistication to get a proper mental health diagnosis by professionals more interested in her well-being than their money.

Another example involved a 70-year-old financial savant whose malignant #narcissism led his wife of 42 years to file for a divorce. He felt the lavish lifestyle he afforded his wife entitled him to his rage and justified the humiliation his sexual infidelities caused her.

In contrast to people of moderate financial means who must deal with the negative consequences of their mental health disorders early in their trajectory, patients of #wealth can postpone and sidestep them for decades. They deny they exist. They rationalize them away. They project them onto others and rage out at anyone who dares to challenge their state of being. In the process, they postpone getting the care they need until the consequences of their conditions are acute and catastrophic.

Fortunately, there’s a growing awareness in the realm of #mentalhealth that an identity of wealth is one that deserves to be addressed through cultural competency and cultural humility. In this awareness, clinicians who work with individuals and families of wealth are becoming more proactive- and successful- in addressing the full range of mental health and relational disorders before they cause irreparable damage.

As I discuss in Fragile Power and other academic literature, the three distinct cultural markers of people of wealth consist of:

1.        Isolation.

2.        Suspicion of outsiders; and,

3.        Hyper agency (The ability to use one’s wealth to mitigate and eliminate discomfort and inconvenience).

By addressing these cultural markers in the initial stages of client engagement, mental health professionals can meet their clients in the reality of the clients’ lives; and in the process, establish a reparative therapeutic alliance with them sooner rather than later.

It’s an art based on science that leads to exceptional clinical outcomes.

During this holiday season, let’s work to ensure #mentalhealthmatters for everyone, everywhere, at every point on the economic spectrum. In so doing we can ensure powerful people are their authority at optimal levels of mental health and relational functioning.

With warm holiday regards,

Dr. Paul

*The identifying details of these examples have been changed to protect the confidentiality of my clients and the integrity of our therapeutic relationship.