What the “rich therapist” learned about happiness by hearing the problems of millionaires

Since she specializes in treating millionaire patients, American psychotherapist Clay Cockrell says she has given up trying to get rich.

“I stopped playing on the lottery. I realized the dangers of having everything in excess.”

Cockrell, who has a New York therapy clinic, says he tries to help his clients deal with what he calls him “Toxic effect of abundance“: The idea of never being enough.

“That idea that ‘when I have 10 million, I will be safe.’ And we reach 10 million, and we realize that we actually need 50, the conclusion is that the Happiness does not come from the bank account. It just doesn’t come, ”says Cockrell in an interview with.

“This behavior has a certain degree of addiction. Because the 50 million will not be enough, and then I will need 100 million, 250 million.”

One of the angles of therapy, therefore, is to help patients identify purposes that go beyond accumulating money.

“If happiness is not in a number, where is it? And from that we start experimenting. Are you in philanthropy? It’s in relationships? It’s building something new, zero? Having ambition is great, but since analyzed and aligned with one why.”

Cockrell specialized in attending super rich by chance, after a very high performance patient likes his style-the therapist does his sessions During hiking through the parkinstead of inside an office. This patient indicated it to other people in this circle.

And the therapist himself was surprised by the problems brought by wealth-even those who are disdaining as “first world problems.”

“Like many people, I believed that money solved problems. It solves some, but not all. Many of my clients say that previous therapists listened to their complaints and answered: ‘I should not treat things like things like where to park your yacht or how to solve your children’s inheritance. ‘ But I always believed in an approach to understanding and acceptance, to think that their problems are legitimate, ”he said.

“It may not be the same problems as mine, but now I know that the Money is a complicating factor in people’s lives. ”

This, Cockrell points out, is the experience of a tiny portion of the global population.

For most, scarcity -related issues – not abundance – money are complicating factors.

An example: a survey by the British Psychotherapy Association pointed out that almost all (94%) the country’s therapists identified that their patients’ mental health had worsened because of financial concerns and the rise in the cost of living.

Experts explain that mental overload of making money “yielding” by the end of the month impacts our decision making and cognitive performance.

Relationship difficulties

Back in super rich, Cockrell makes the exception that he knows so many of them unhappy because his sample is, of course, skewed: “People do not seek a therapist when they are happy.”

But it points out that “the people I attend are those in which money complicated their lives and brought some negativity, (…) lack of empathylack of ability to understand who has not achieved the same level of success. ”

In the same line, the therapist says that super rich people end up developing relationship difficulties in the family, tend to DISCORDE TO THE REAL WORLD And they feel a lot of suspicion about people who approach them.

“Rich people often interact with those who can understand them. This is very common. And what happens is that they get very, very isolated and suspicious of new people“, it says.

“Fear is ‘is you coming into my life just for what can I do for you? Because of my celebrity status, or my wealth?’. Maybe paranoia is a strong word, but There is a lot of suspicion – And that prevents new relationships from being formed. ”

Heir’s life

Passing childhood and adolescence in a wealthy family also brings its challenges.

“Parents often want spare your children to difficulties that they themselves faced and give them an easier life. This is normal. But you need to realize that overcoming the difficulties was what made it as it is, ”says the therapist.

“In addition, when you expose your child child or adolescent to this world of private aircraft, wonderful restaurants and vacation in amazing places, when he is 21 he will have the feeling of ‘I’ve seen everything, I’ve tasted it all‘And you will feel boring. Will start testing limitseither with drug use or risk behaviors to feel adrenaline. Just to have the feeling that you are doing something new. ”

Cockrell also notes that the children of the super rich suffer “a huge pressure to do better than their parents”, especially those who follow the same career as parents-as celebrities in the entertainment world, called pejoratively called nepobabies.

“It is a great pressure, which contrasts with the idea of going through its own way, discovering one’s own passions and being entitled to err and fail. suffer from the lack of ambition. ‘What do I go to college or start my own business?’ Having so much wealth can be depressingeither because they are no longer purpose, or because they are always pressured to do better than their parents. ”

Fascination with Super Rica

Clay Cockrell has gained more prominence in recent years just writing about parallels of your practice with the Succession series (2018-2023), which shows the disputes of a multimillionaire family to control the media conglomerate created by the patriarch.

“The series is very exact when portraying the Toxic effect of excessAbout the multimillionaires, says Cockrell.

Part of Succession’s success is due to the fact that super rich people usually awaken from fascination to disdain, depending on the interlocutor.

The billionaires have become idols, gained enormous political influence and have, for some, the Visionary and Innovative Statute. But for others, they became symbols of a global fiscal system considered unfairwhich critics say they favor the concentration of income at the expense of the poorest population.

Clay Cockrell says their ultra-rich patients are aware of these different perceptions about them.

“It’s something that comes and goes in cycles: There are times when society admires the richest as people who worked hard, and there are times when it changes and becomes negative feelings that they have conquered everything by harmful means. Many of these people They are incredibly intelligentstruggling and won admirable things in their lives. Sometimes they are admired and sometimes vilified. And feel very confused about that. ”

For “ordinary” people, Cockrell thinks the biggest lesson of his practice is not to believe that becoming a millionaire It’s the secret of happiness.

“For the rest of us who believe that ‘if I get that increase, if I work even more, I will be happy’, see the people who have everything: they are not happy. And that challenges us to think: So what will bring me happiness and joy? It is in relationships, in the familyin the contribution we make to the community. This is where happiness comes“.