Frustrated that he couldn’t help clients change for their own good, Samuel Molina went looking for help.
“I believe I found the course while scrolling on the Facebook app. I clicked on the link and became very intrigued with the idea of learning more about how behaviors shape our spending habits and financial outcomes,’’ says Molina, an Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®) in California.
As a student in the University of Georgia’s online graduate certificate program, Behavioral Financial Planning and Financial Therapy, Molina studied what motivates clients to change or stay stuck. A class on the six stages of change was an eye-opener.
“Financial planners would do well to understand the stages of change so that they can focus more of their attention on those wanting and willing to make changes,’’ he says.
Molina learned that understanding motive and needs reveals that one-size-fits-all isn’t practical. For instance, he said that what seems like a good idea to an advisor, such as buying life insurance, may not appeal to the young client with no children.
“A client’s decision to move forward is based on how they feel about a certain product or situation,’’ he says.
Dictating Decisions to Clients is Pointless
The University of Georgia (UGA) program also taught Molina that advisors and counselors should give clients the information and expertise needed for decision making, and then step back.
“It is very important to guide clients to see themselves as the solution to their own problems, instead of us telling them they need to do something,’’ Molina says.
Dictating decisions to clients is a pointless exercise, says Kristy Archuleta, PhD, CFT, the co-founder of the UGA online graduate program.
“We’d be told by financial professionals, ‘I made this great plan for my clients and they didn’t do it, they didn’t follow through.’ It was not surprising to me, to someone with a practice in family therapy: People don’t do what you tell them!’’ said Archuleta, a professor in financial planning at UGA’s department of financial planning, housing and consumer economics
Advisors, Planners and Others Are Welcome
Begun in January 2024, the UGA online graduate certificate program had five students in its first cohort; the second cohort has eight students, with more women enrolled. The five, three-credit hours courses are in behavioral economics and financial planning for families, advanced financial counseling and client communication, clinical practicum in financial planning, survey of financial therapy, and money and relationships.
A similar program is offered at several schools, including Creighton University, the University of Kentucky, and Golden Gate University, Archuleta says.
The UGA program is open to financial and therapeutic professionals, such as planners, advisors, CPAs, tax accountants and therapists/educators such as Molina.
Archuleta says that students from the first cohort who used techniques learned in the program have told her they worked.
“It might just be tweaking how they discuss something. They might ask a question a little bit differently, or use a different approach in how they work with the client,’’ she says.
Some Soul Searching
To meet CFP board standards certification, financial planning topics must now include psychology, Archuleta says. She thinks the new CFP requirement was partially inspired byor the soul searching that sprang up about emotional, physical and financial well-being during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“During Covid, there was an acknowledgment that the different aspects of well-being are intermixed, which is not a surprise to us,” she says. “But it rose to a new level during Covid, and that has elevated the issue of intermixed well-being to a new level and put it on a very fast track.’’
Archuleta says the UGA online graduate program also encourages financial professionals to understand their own feelings about money so they can create a plan that meets a client’s wishes and needs, not their own.
For instance, she says she might not see the wisdom of spending hundreds of dollars on a purse, but a client who does shouldn’t be discouraged.
“One of the issues we don’t acknowledge, unless you do deeper psychology, is how well professionals know themselves, and the impact that that can have on the client’s success.
“We all have these attitudes or biases but we haven’t always thought about them. If you haven’t done work on yourself and your own relationship with money, it will be more difficult to evaluate your client’s motives.’’
A Closer Look
Molina says that UGA program’s emphasis on understanding motivation is part of his methodology as a financial educator and therapist. “Financial therapy is the marriage of financial planning and psychotherapy,” he says. “By using a therapeutic approach, I am able to create a more trusting relationship and better understand the motivations behind my clients’ behaviors.”
“I work with my clients to uncover their money values, financial flashpoints and financially traumatic events. By recognizing them, we can collaboratively explore how these experiences influence their financial behavior,” he says. “This allows us to develop strategies for more effective financial decision making.’’
Eleanor O’Sullivan is a writer for Rethinking65. In a four-decade career in journalism, she has reviewed many books on best practices for financial advisors. Read more of her articles here.
