The Psychology of Advice: The Madding Crowd

Or you could take an even more radical stance: "Suppose you're right about this. Let's look at what we need to do with your portfolio if the worst happens and the wealthy get a lot less wealthy in the years to come." (This could happen irrespective of any socialist manifesto, so planning for it may be the right thing to do anyway.)

Whenever I've had therapy clients whose political views differ from mine, the relationship works fine unless they start haranguing me about their opinions. This always tests my patience and my ability to do good work with them. If your client's tirades get on your nerves to the point where you're about to lose your temper, do what's necessary to calm yourself, and then tell him (as gently as you can) that you prefer your office to be a politics-free zone. Suggest that the two of you don't have to see eye to eye on the state of the nation in order to develop a plan that works for him.

Good luck in navigating this client's fears, biases, and far-out perceptions of reality! Continuing your relationship with him will definitely be a challenge unless you can artfully deflect his extreme political statements.

Q: A number of my clients are not just depressed about their portfolios and their ruined plans; they're really angry. They're mad at the Wall Street firms and big banks for getting us into this mess, they're mad at people like Madoff and the guy from Stanford Financial who have ripped off so many people and still haven't paid for what they did, and they're mad at me for not protecting them from the market's collapse. All this anger is taking its toll on me. How can I turn it into something more positive and productive?

A: This is a great question, and one I know many other advisors must be asking.

The first and most important thing is to see if you can react less emotionally to your clients' feelings. Make some time to reflect on how you feel about and deal with anger. While you were growing up, did people in your family express anger, or did they suppress it? Were there violent outbursts of anger that traumatized you in any way? Were you conditioned to avoid showing your own anger at all times?

Once you understand your feelings and behavior around this charged emotion, you may be able to think of ways to deal better with angry clients. Learning to calmly withstand a moderate amount of venting from clients is an important part of being a therapeutic educator, but I emphasize the phrase "a moderate amount." No one needs to put up with intense dumping of negative feelings. That's close to abusive. If we respect ourselves, I think we all need to set limits on what we are willing to tolerate from others.

I empathize (as I imagine you do) with your clients' anger toward the greed and corruption being uncovered in this financial upheaval. It's important to listen to their anger and dissatisfaction for a while, and by all means share your feelings with them so they feel less alone. But you also need to protect yourself. A technique I've used successfully is to imagine myself surrounded by a protective membrane of golden light particles that blocks other people's negativity. This allows me to hear and respond to clients without being overloaded with their pain, fear, or anger. Another tip is to focus on your breathing if a stressful confrontation threatens to pull your own trigger. Getting back to more centered breathing will help you withstand whatever comes up.

That said, I think it's a good idea to distinguish between clients who just want to beat you up, and those who need to rant and rave for a short time before moving on to resume a more productive dialogue. If they fall into the category of persistent hotheads and finger-pointers, you may have to step in forcefully and invite them to turn to what they (and you) can control: their spending, their lifestyle choices, their spiritual nurturing, their creativity, their human connections. One planner told me that when clients are feeling powerless about their shrinking portfolios, making even a small change in spending habits (like giving up daily lattes) can go a long way toward helping them feel more positive and in control.

If your clients can't get on board with this, you might propose that they work with someone else toward whom they don't feel this backlog of anger. This suggestion may wake up some clients who didn't realize how stuck they were in a vicious circle of rage and recrimination.

When clients come to you bristling with anger, suspicion, panic, and catastrophe scenarios, you can lessen the intensity of these emotions by creating a safe place to hear them. For those who are trapped in a vicious circle of wrath, it's vital to gently redirect them to sources of creativity, connection, hope, and healing. By exploring your own weaknesses and reactions in the face of negativity, and remembering to breathe deeply and protect yourself, you'll be better able to model good stress management and be a calm center in the eye of this economic storm.