Let Us Have a Little Compassion for the Ultra-Rich

From the shrink couches of the 1%:

And as they stroll through Manhattan, what issues are America’s 1% struggling with? There is guilt over being rich in the first place, he said. There is the feeling that they have to hide the fact that they are rich. And then there is the isolation – being in the 1%, it turns out, can be lonely.

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The media, [Jamie Traeger-Muney, a wealth psychologist and founder of the Wealth Legacy Group] said, is partly to blame for making the rich “feel like they need to hide or feel ashamed”.

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“You can come up with lot of words and sayings about inheritors, not one of them is positive: spoiled brat, born with a silver spoon in their mouth, trust fund babies, all these things,” she said, adding that it’s “easy to scapegoat the rich”.

“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."

  Guardian

We would if they were rich inheritors.

[T]heir counsellors argue things have only gotten worse since the financial crisis and the debate over income inequality that has been spurred on by movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Fight for $15 fair wage campaign.

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These types of protests can be very stressful for the rich. “It’s really isolating to have a lot of money. It can be scary – people’s reaction to you,” said Barbara Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology.

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“Someone else who is also a billionaire – they don’t want anything from you! Never being able to trust your friendships with people of different means, I think that is difficult,” said Cockrell. “As the gap has widened, they [the rich] have become more and more isolated.”

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It’s much more socially acceptable to say: ‘I am broke. Things are hard.’ You can’t say: ‘I have a ton of money.’ You have to keep a lot of your life private except in small circles.”

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As a result, [shrink to the ultra-rich, Clay] Cockrell points out, the rich tend to hang out with other rich Americans, not out of snobbery, but in order to be around those who understand them and their problems.

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"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.”

Yes, because when you come out of the closet as a gay, EVERYbody wants to be your friend.


But rich people have feelings, too.

I wonder what their shrinks charge.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.