DEL.ICIO.USTherapy booms as economy sinks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Atlanta psychologist Mary Gresham has built a steady practice over the years helping the newly wealthy with inheritance and other money concerns.
In the past year, though, the mood has changed. So has some of her clientele: unemployed executives. Bankrupt entrepreneurs. Commission-only salespeople grappling with withering income. Shell-shocked homeowners trying to make sense of their dwindling financial portfolios and home equity and no credit options.
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“I’ve had people who’ve always had money feeling panicked and stressed and crying and feeling a lot of loss during the past year.”
But nothing prepared Gresham for the week of Oct. 6, when the stock market plunged 18 percent and unleashed a tide of patients whose blood pressures spiked with every dip in the market.
As the Dow stutter-steps through market gyrations not seen since the Great Depression, those in the business of handling other people’s money are handling a lot more than finances. The meltdown is creating a de facto support group among money advisers, physicians and counselors linked through a web of referrals.
Gresham, a clinical psychologist who specializes in financial issues, has taken on four patient referrals from financial planners in the past month. She uses stress-reduction therapy and refers those who need more help to psychiatrists who can prescribe medication.
Little wonder. The nation’s economy has been faltering over the past year or so, but the decline has worsened recently.
The value of U.S. homes fell 2.5 percent — or $351 billion — in the second quarter. And the latest stock market meltdown has erased more than $1 trillion from American nest eggs, drastically altering people’s financial goals, lifestyles, sleep and overall health.
The stories of Wall Street-to-Main Street woes seem endless:
• The head of one Atlanta sleep disorder center is sleep-deprived herself. Business is up but her husband, a mortgage broker, tosses and turns at night.
• A year ago, Buckhead real estate attorney Michael Brochstein sat at closings with seven or eight different banks. Today he’s working with one. “It’s pretty bad right now,” said Brochstein, 52. The stress was so severe that Brochstein says he recently developed a condition that temporarily froze his facial muscles.
• At the Anxiety and Stress Management Institute in Atlanta, psychologist Alan Behrman’s Thursday schedule included nine back-to-back appointments. He used to have Fridays off. Now he works half-days on Fridays and he’s booked solid. The appointment calendar of the career counselor who joined the institute two months ago stays full.
“If you come in any given afternoon, it’s standing-room only in the lobby,” said Behrman, who has referred a couple of clients to financial planners. “I used to replace my box of tissues once a month. Now, it’s every two weeks.”
• Client anxiety was so high at David Fisher’s Atlanta financial firm that a three-page letter was sent to hundreds of clients to try to allay fears. It was the first time SignatureFD sent out a special mailing.
“It’s really just communication and giving them something more tangible,” said Fisher, SignatureFD’s founding partner and chief investment officer. Regular clients understand the volatility and are holding steady, Fisher said. It’s the “do-it-yourselfers” — those who managed their own money during the good time — now looking for professional help to keep from becoming unglued.
Most of the professionals advise their clients to keep things in perspective. A bear market will eventually turn into a bull. Before doing anything foolish, they said, investors should maintain short-term and long-term game plans. Neither paralysis nor hasty action should be part of those plans.
Still, stressful times can result in sleepless nights.
“Our volumes have increased hugely in the last few months,” said Cynthia Blount, director of the Northside Hospital Sleep Disorders Center.
Among the people losing sleep in Atlanta: Blount. The gymnastics of the stock market and the late night commentary after the televised presidential debates have all conspired to keep the Roswell resident awake after hours.
Her husband’s insomnia hasn’t helped.
“It’s happening to me!” said the sleep expert. “I’m the director and I can’t even do it right.”
Brochstein, the real estate attorney, said the frozen muscles on the right side of his face were described as Bell’s Palsy, and “stress is one of the things that causes that.”
He’s since recovered, even if the economy hasn’t.
Economic hand-wringing isn’t necessarily all bad.
Some experts believe it may finally wring out the excesses that have marked the last decade.
“In psychology, we’ve been concerned about consumer excesses for a long time,” Gresham said. “People are overspent and overworked. This is going to push people into more moderate lifestyles. They’re just beginning to rethink priorities and values, and they’re taking the focus off of consumer excess and spending.”
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