Neurotic Attitudes Toward Money

In the now somewhat dated text Money & Emotional Conflicts, published in 1951, Edmund Bergler began with a dramatic erotization of money drawn from one of his patients:

Since the world of securities represents in addition to its economic interests, an unconscious sublimation of conflictual thoughts and affects derived developmentally from attitudes toward money, it is probable that the majority of conflicts related to investing are directly correlated to neurotic attitudes about money.

Augmenting Classical Theory

According to classical psychoanalytic theory, money equals feces in the unconscious. Therefore, failure to successfully resolve the conflicts related to the anal period of development (roughly ages two to three) leads to neurotic attitudes toward bowel habits and by displacement to money. Theoretically a child renounces the pleasure associated with anal retention and expulsion for one reason only—the wish to please the parents. While this is predominantly true, other factors also weigh in, e.g., peer pressure from a group.

To fully understand the evolution of neurotic problems regarding money, this simplified view of the anal period must be expanded. It is the Freudian opinion that all people are endowed with two distinct instinctual drives: one libidinal, the other destructive or aggressive. While in healthy adults libidinal drives are focused on other people; in infants, they are entirely self-focused and are described as narcissistic. An infant's worldview is self-centered and not clearly defined between self and others. It is theoretically possible that the hungry infant's cry for food and the mother's nurturing response with breast or bottle is perceived by the infant not as the response of a loving mother but rather as a magical response to the baby's own omnipotence. The significance of this with respect to investments is that money becomes a signifier of omnipotence in the unconscious of the neurotic. The reality of money is that it has value to buy real possessions or real services. All the other notions commonly surrounding money—security, power, admiration, love—are reflections of neurotic attitudes. Money is a means to an end for healthy people. For the neurotic, money becomes an end unto itself.

Infantile Conflicts and Omnipotent Fantasies

One result is that the neurotic will fear being cheated to such an extent that he/she suffers enormously in all investment scenarios. It also makes spending money very difficult. The classic example of this is the alleged story of the famed miser and investor Hetty Green who allowed her son to lose a leg to gangrene rather than paying his doctor's bill. Such neurotic people experience rage and indignation upon the simplest requests for money.

Such neurotic conflicts are not confined to misers or other severely anal characters. They also appear in milder forms with many people. A common example is the person who can buy only at sales or if he/she believes she is getting a bargain. Another example is the comment, “I can't afford it” (when the reality is otherwise) which is a reflection of psychic masochism stemming from unresolved infantile omnipotence.

All of these attitudes come into play in investing in stocks and bonds. For some neurotics, the accumulation of assets becomes an end in itself rather than a means to an end. Inherited wealth is often so strongly identified with parents that utilization of the money is severely impaired by guilt. Parents attempt to prolong infantile control over grown children. The variations on the theme are endless.

The paradoxical result of psychotherapy or analysis with these people is that the satisfactory resolution of these infantile anal conflicts and omnipotent fantasies is that the individual simultaneously enhances his/her ability to make money and enjoy spending it.