How did I become what I call a Money and Relationships Coach, Psychological Wealth Counselor, Psychotherapist, and Mentor? As I would do with any of my clients, I must look to my past to find the seeds of my current professional interests and activities.
I grew up in a moderately affluent family. My father was a physician who made a good living, but who was more concerned with the welfare of his clients than the bottom line. I understood that my father was a very well loved and respected, and I admired and wanted to be like him.
Money never seemed to be a problem in our family. There always seemed to be enough for me to feel secure. Like my father I became a healer of sorts; not a physician but a social worker and psychotherapist.
Like him, I did not at first pay much attention to the importance of money, either in my own life or in the lives of my clients. I always seemed able to afford what I needed. I managed either to save enough to pay for what I wanted or I adjusted my desires to what I could afford. I did not know much about the concerns most people had about money.
As a social worker I sometimes helped poor clients apply for welfare or food stamps. But like most other people in American culture, including those in my profession, I was affected by a taboo against asking other people about the role money played in their lives. So for much of my career I was blind to its importance in the emotions and relationships of just about everyone.
I have two people to thank for opening my eyes to the central role that money plays in the emotional and interpersonal lives of just about everyone in this society, where a money based economy is central to how we feel, how we think, how we relate to ourselves and others, and how we live our lives.
The first eye-opener was a client who came to me in 1985. He was so clear about his concerns about money that I could not ignore them, even in the face of the money taboo. Very simply, he wanted help deciding whether to choose a very demanding but also very lucrative profession or to find a more relaxed but lower paying type of job. Only as we began to explore these options did it become apparent that they masked all sorts of money related conflicts involving issues of loyalty, shame, competition, values, and concern about masculinity.
That was the first time I realized the connection of money to so many psychological issues. As a result I began to think about and ask more about the role money played in the lives of my clients.
In 1999 I started MORE Services for MOney and Relationships, crystallizing my interest in helping people with their money related psychological concerns into a specialty practice. And I published my first professional article: one of the very first that described the money taboo as a problem which psychotherapists had to overcome if they were to be helpful to clients who had money related psychological problems.


Shortly after I encountered that first client willing to talk about his money issues, I married Jan Hopkins who was, at that time, a financial journalist and who became, for many years, a business news anchor at CNN. The stories she was covering seemed to reflect many of the problems and concerns I was beginning to recognize in the stories my clients were telling me. Jan's background and personality also helped me to open my eyes. She had grown up in different circumstances than I had: circumstances in which stories of the Depression had more immediacy. Her parents had pushed her to rise above their blue collar existence and become a successful woman. I recognized that her ambition was spurred not only by pride in her ability and accomplishments but also by an anxiety over money that I did not share. For her it must have seemed that my relative lack of concern about money was naïve, if not irresponsible. As with most couples, sometimes we argued about money--how much we needed and what it should be used for. This, along with what I was now hearing from my clients, helped me to recognize that my view of the world and of money was not the only valid one.
In her job as a financial news anchor Jan often interviewed some of the most prominent newsmakers from Washington and Wall Street. When she eventually left CNN first to become Director of Client Communications at one of the country's largest private banks and, eventually, to start her own consulting company and to become President of The New York Economic Club, her associations with the wealthy and powerful only increased. I was already beginning to see some high-net-worth clients in my private practice (along with some less wealthy ones in my part-time work in not for profit clinics) and these associations and friendships that I was able to make through Jan's connections helped me to appreciate that, while differing economic and social conditions create some problems that are unique to each class, the power of money and what we think and feel about it affects everyone.
Early in my professional career I was trained as a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist. Over the years I learned other techniques. As I gained in confidence and experience, I became more relaxed and flexible in how I worked with clients. I use the term clients because I began to recognize that not everyone who asks for help is a client suffering from a mental disorder. Much of what I now do I consider to be coaching or counseling.
Outside of my work I enjoy many aspects of life: my family and friends, literature, writing, travel, theatre, time spent in the country, photography, and landscape painting. These last two interests are reflected in the art shown on this website.

This is my personal statement. Below you can read about my professional qualifications and experience as well as about some media interviews that featured me.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Richard Trachtman, Ph.D., L.C.S.W is a social worker, life coach, psychotherapist, marriage counselor, family and divorce mediator, teacher, and administrator with many years of experience helping individuals, couples, families, and organizations to overcome problems and to function effectively.
For over a decade he has specialized in what he calls Money and Relationships Coaching, Counseling, and Psychotherapy. He also provides educational services, including workshops, seminars, lectures, and writings that have to do with how money affects our relationships with others and ourselves, and how it relates to happiness and well-being.

EDUCATION

M.S.W., University of Michigan School of Social Work. (1964)
Ph.D., Smith College School for Social Work. (1978)

ADDITIONAL TRAINING
Dr. Trachtman holds numerous advanced training certificates and has completed coursework in adult and child psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, divorce mediation, and budgeting and financial management in social work administration

LICENSES AND CERTIFICATIONS

LCSW No. RP001205-1. New York State Licensed Clinical Social Worker.
ACSW, Academy of Certified Social Workers, National Association of Social Workers.
BCD, American Academy of Examiners in Clinical Social Work

WORK HISTORY

Dr. Richard Trachtman has been a psychotherapist and social worker, both in private practice and for mental health clinics and social work agencies, since 1964. In addition to direct practice he has worked as an administrator and has supervised and taught numerous social workers, psychologists and students in a variety of schools, training institutes and clinics. The agencies he has worked for include:

• Queens Child Guidance, Inc. (Administrator of the Foster Care Clinic.)
• The Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy (Associate Clinic Director)
• New Hope Guild Centers for Mental Health (Administrative Director)
• Brookwood Child Care (Director of Preventive Services)
• Frederick Douglass Mental Health Clinic (Clinical Supervisor)
• Washington Square Institute for Psychotherapy (Clinical Supervisor and adjunct instructor in child psychotherapy)
• Adelphi University School of Social Work (Adjunct Assistant Professor)
• Hunter College School of Social Work (Adjunct Clinical Associate)

DR. TRACHTMAN INTERVIEWED, QUOTED, CITED OR FEATURED

January 1, 1998	CNN, Just In Time, with Valerie Morris. Interviewed regarding the kinds of stress experienced by children, what parents should look out for, and when therapy is needed for children.
December 10, 1998	CNN Saturday Morning, with Miles O'Brien . Interviewed regarding Men's anxiety about shopping vs.Women's comfort.
October 23, 2000	WNYC (radio) A More Perfect Union. In a call in show about the role money plays in people's relationships, I served as the on air expert, dealing with issues that callers described on air.
August 27, 2001	The Straits Times.(A Singapore Newspaper) "More parents cut off kids and leave money to charity". "Dr Richard Trachtman, a United States psychotherapist who specializes in treating clients with money-related problems, said 'Many parents worry about "bratlash" - that the exposure of their children to wealth may spoil them.'"
October, 2002	Details magazine. Why Money and Love Don't Mix. I am quoted as saying that a man is making a mistake if he thinks a loan to a girlfriend is addressing only a purely financial need. ". . . there's always an external reason for lending money … And there are always internal ones. … Money," says Trachtman, "is a blank screen onto which we project beliefs, hopes, and fears. A woman who borrows from a boyfriend may really be saying she wants him to take care of her. Or she may be trying to establish a link that she hasn't been able to establish emotionally. As for the guy, he may simply feel that the loan is a small price to pay to avoid confrontation. He could be trying to buy credit for his generosity and dependability. Or perhaps working out his guilt."
July 7, 2002	The New York Times. "Portfolios Depressed, Traders Seek Therapy, by Alessandra Stanley". "Richard Trachtman, a … psychotherapist who specializes in money issues, said he does not operate as a financial adviser. He helps clients uncover their deep rooted taboos about money. … But he can help clients understand what kind of portfolio best suits their psyches. 'There are some people who should invest very conservatively … Other people can enjoy the risk without becoming devastated by loss.'"
November, 2007	GQ Magazine, "Confessions of a financial moron", by Joel Lovell. In this article the author writes about his own problems dealing with money. He includes a fairly long and detailed description of his interview with me, much of which involved my trying to help him to begin thinking about his personal difficulties with money.
December, 2007	Monitor on Psychology, by Sadie Dingfelder. www.apa.org/monitor 'Further complicating the issue are money's symbolic meanings,' says Richard Trachtman, PhD … 'For some, money equals love, and they lavish gifts on their spouse and children, whether they have the money to do it or not,' he notes. 'Money is a blank screen and we project onto it what our issues are: love, power, sex, whatever. …Combine two people, and their conflicting, deeply held beliefs about money, and it's no wonder that finances spark so much marital strife.'
September 19, 2008	International Herald Tribune, Learning to reach lower for happpiness. by Sharon Reier. "For those whose sense of self depends on money, warned Richard Trachtman, who runs a New York psychological practice specializing in money and relationships, the consequences of concentrating on wealth are often 'unhappiness, physical problems, headaches, backaches, suppressed tension, which leads to heart attacks, problems in relationships and problems with sleep.' "