The Financial Therapy Podcast - It's Not Just About The Money

What if the hardest financial planning work isn’t about numbers—but sitting with someone who’s dying? Rose Zealand reframes birth and death as parallel forms of “labor,” involving both the individual and their circle of care. She exposes a critical gap in traditional planning: when a midlife diagnosis hits, technical advice collides with shock and emotional shutdown. As both CFP® and death doula, she w...

Under the leadership of Dr. Megan Ford, the University of Georgia is training the next generation of financial therapists in a way few institutions can. Inside the Love and Money Center, financial planning students and couple and family therapy students learn side by side—sometimes even sitting together with real clients as money stress and relationship conflict unfold in real time. Rather than separating numbers from emotion...

Why do smart, capable people ignore advice they genuinely believe is good for them? In this episode, Joy Slabaugh—a CFP® and Certified Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapist—joins the conversation to explore why behavior change rarely comes from better information alone. Joy explains how IFS helps financial planners understand the internal conflicts people experience around money, and why working with “parts&rdqu...

What if some of our most persistent money problems aren’t budgeting issues at all—but trauma responses we’ve never named? This conversation pushes past polite financial talk and questions some deeply held beliefs: that healing has to hurt, that more money means more fulfillment, and that trauma is either everywhere or nowhere at all. Joy offers a sharp critique of both the financial industry’s emotional avoi...

Money has a way of exposing parts of us we’d rather not see, and as Ed Coambs, CFP, CFT makes clear in this conversation, wealth doesn’t protect us from that. Together, Rick and Ed unpack why money anxiety grows right alongside income, how attachment styles quietly shape our financial decisions, and why couples keep having the same money fights no matter how smart or successful they are. Through personal stories and har...

Most of our money struggles don’t start with numbers—they start with personality. In this conversation, Rick sits down with Khara Croswaite Brindle to explore how each Enneagram type relates to money in strikingly different ways. Achievers often tie worth to financial success, helpers give until their own security erodes, loyalists manage money through anxiety and vigilance, and enthusiasts stay focused on what’s ...

Financial therapy isn’t about having the right tools—it’s about having the courage to face your own money story first. In this conversation, Khara Croswaite speaks candidly about burnout, money avoidance, and the quiet damage that can happen when helpers skip their own inner work. Through her path from mental health therapy to financial therapy, a hard truth emerges: we can’t ethically ask clients to go plac...

What if the fastest path to your Enneagram type wasn’t testing or theory—but listening to your parts? In this conversation, Rick Kahler and Enneagram veteran Joan Ryan explore a powerful, emerging approach: using Internal Family Systems (IFS) as a direct pathway to accurate Enneagram typing. Joan explains how the Enneagram offers a reliable map of core motivations, while IFS provides the method to investigate them from ...

What happens in the wide gray space between financial therapy and life planning? In this rich, unscripted conversation, Rick explores that question with a next-generation leader who brings both heart and rigor to the future of financial planning. Together, they unpack the difference between “snorkeling” and “scuba diving” with clients, why deep listening and long pauses can be more transformative than advice...

What happens when money struggles, relationship patterns, and personal history all collide in the same room? In this wide-ranging and deeply human conversation, Rick Kahler sits down with Dr. Megan Ford to explore how financial therapy grew out of systems thinking, why “fixing one person” rarely fixes anything, and how our earliest money wounds quietly shape our adult lives. Megan shares her journey from marriage and fa...

When financial conversations start sounding like political debates, something deeper is going on, and this piece explores why facts can feel threatening when emotions take the driver’s seat. It highlights how polarization has eroded our shared understanding of basic economic principles, leaving advisors torn between honesty and clients’ emotional reactions. Drawing on the lens of financial therapy, it reveals how identi...

Most of us hear the word “socialism” and picture a single, monolithic system—but this episode unpacks four very different versions of it and reveals how much fear and old conditioning shape our reactions to economic ideas. Through an unexpectedly personal journey, Rick traces how his Cold War–era assumptions unraveled as he explored the distinctions between State Socialism, State Capitalism, worker cooperati...

What if the way you pay is part of the therapy? Some psychoanalytic therapists ask for cash after each session—not for convenience, but because money itself reveals emotional truth. Forgetting to pay, overpaying, or haggling can uncover hidden dynamics worth exploring. Vessy explains how two sessions a week can go far deeper than one and why honest talk about fees is as essential as discussing feelings. When money enters the ...

Real change with money isn’t about willpower—it’s about the brain rewriting old rules. In this conversation, Rick and financial therapist Emily Shull explore how memory reconsolidation and IFS work together to transform money behavior. Emily explains the four elements of deep change and shares a powerful client story where a childhood belief about money secrecy dissolved, leading to honest communication instead of...

Here’s a fresh way to choose the right “money-and-meaning” help: this conversation maps the entire financial therapy spectrum as a simple two-axis quadrant: financial to psychotherapy and shallow to deep, then shows where options like books, coaching, financial planning, CBT, IFS, and psychoanalysis actually sit, and how to know what you need; with guest Vessy Tasheva, Rick explores why credentials matter less tha...

When faith dictates money, the fallout can be devastating—especially for women. In this conversation with Sarah Carr, the focus turns to how rigid gender roles, abuse, and teachings like “God will provide” leave families financially vulnerable and women without autonomy. They explore how inherited beliefs around worthiness, guilt, and divine blessing shape earning potential, retirement savings, and even the courag...

What happens when belonging is tied to your bank account? This piece shows how cult-like religious environments turn “sacrificial giving” into financial control, leaving money scripts like “If I don’t give, I’ll be rejected.” Through client stories—including retirees pressured to keep giving—it highlights how loss of community magnifies money fears. Reframing generosity beyond dollars...

What if money works like skin—protecting, signaling, and setting boundaries? Dublin-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist and financial therapist Vessy Tasheva shares how trust, reliability, and clear limits shape the healing process. From earliest money memories and family genograms to the subtle ways clients “test” safety, she shows why financial therapy is about emotions, not advice. By holding consistent presen...

Anxiety in the face of shifting headlines isn’t irrational—it often mirrors how state-controlled markets actually behave: lower returns, higher volatility, and a wobblier ride. The lesson isn’t to avoid these markets entirely, but to recognize their place in a diversified portfolio while resisting the urge to overreact when headlines spark fear. By slowing down, noticing which parts of us are panicking, and ground...