50. [CE] Financial Therapy 101: How to Talk to Your Clients About Money with Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, LMSW

Social Work to Wealth Podcast

In this episode, host Taylor and guest Lindsay Bryan-Podvin explore the intersection of money and mental health through the lens of financial

Key takeaways

• Lindsay Bryan-ly Podvin defines financial therapy as a process helping people change how they think, feel, and behave with money.
• There is a documented bidirectional relationship between clinical depression and debt accumulation.

Main topics

• Defining Financial Therapy
• Money Scripts and Childhood Development

Notable quotes

Money impacts all of us... It's not a magic wand.

Conclusion

The episode serves as an empowering guide for clinicians to integrate

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Welcome to the Social Work to Wealth podcast, where we're challenging the idea that social workers shouldn't care or talk about money. Hi, I'm Taylor. Speaker 1 (0:07) And I'm Faith. We're two licensed clinical social workers who know firsthand the challenges of navigating this field. In Speaker 2 (0:14) this podcast, we're here to empower you with practical tools for managing your money, advancing your career, and building long-term financial success so you can do more than just get by. Speaker 1 (0:25) Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Speaker 2 (0:27) Social Work to Wealth podcast. Taylor here. And today we're going to be talking about Financial Therapy 101. Super excited. And we have Lindsay Bryan Podvin here to share all of her wisdom and knowledge about this topic. So super excited to have her here. Speaker 1 (0:45) If you just want to share. with people Speaker 2 (0:47) like who you are and what do you do? That'd be great. Great Speaker 1 (0:50) way to start. Thanks for having me, Taylor. As you mentioned, I'm Lindsay. I'm a licensed social worker in the state of Michigan, and I'm also a certified financial therapist. I've worked in many different areas in the field of social work, and right now I'm in private practice, and the bulk of my work is split between a small clinical practice doing one-on-one work with clients. And then I do a lot of workshops and facilitations with different organizations and groups who want to help their employees or their co-workers, their colleagues, their friends even understand the intersection of money and mental health. So I do a lot of financial psychoeducation. Financial mental psychoeducation is a better way to put it. Speaker 2 (1:41) How did you get into, you know, this this work? I feel like you've been doing this for a while and it still feels like a very kind of new concept to a lot of people these days. So, yeah. Yeah, I. Speaker 1 (1:56) I kind of stumbled into it. As I mentioned, my background is in clinical social work. And in my first job at a nonprofit, I was working with folks who were refugees being resettled into the US. And I was also making less than I did when I was a waitress. So all of a sudden, I experienced the impact of finances on my mental and physical health. I am very open that I had very well managed anxiety and depression. And all of a sudden, those symptoms were flaring, it was impacting my ability to sleep, to stay alert, I was getting colds and flus all the time. And really understanding the impact of money, not just on what's going in and out of my checking account, but also in terms of how it was impacting my physical and mental health, which I understand is a very privileged thing to say. And at the same time, I felt like the way that we spoke about money, especially then, this was almost 15 years ago now, which is what? No, it was 15 years ago. Okay. It's officially, it's been 15 years since I've been done with grad school. I'm just going to sit with that. But Just the way that we spoke about money then, it's definitely improved, had been highly, highly individualistic. It's your fault if you're struggling. It's because you don't have willpower. You just need to work harder and save more. But as a social worker, you know, I was trained to look at things through a cultural, a systemic lens. And as a social worker who specialized in mental health, I was also trained to think about things through a mental health lens. And I just felt like we were missing the mark. And I knew that I wanted to stay in the field of social work. I didn't want to move into becoming a financial advisor or planner. I really loved the work that I did, but I wanted to expand it to better fit the reality that I knew myself and so many clients and so many people who aren't my clients were facing. Yeah, Speaker 2 (3:58) yeah, absolutely. I feel like a lot of individuals in the financial space, it kind of started with their own. journey and struggles with with it and then just kind of becomes a passion um Speaker 1 (4:11) yeah so for those who are new Speaker 2 (4:14) to this topic how would you describe financial therapy what is what exactly is that um Speaker 1 (4:20) i have a couple of definitions i'm going to read because Speaker 1 (4:26) The disclaimer for this CE course is that even though I'm a social worker and a certified financial therapist, I am not an affiliate or endorsing the organizations that I talk about today. I'm just sharing with you what exists in the landscape. So I'm going to read the Financial Therapy Association's definition of financial therapy from the first forum that they had in 2008. And then I'll read their current definition from 2026. So in 2008, they defined financial therapy as, quote, to promote a vision of financial therapy, which is the study of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, relational, economic, and integrative aspects of financial health. And now in 2026, it's a bit longer and a bit more, what sort I'm looking for? It's a bit more comprehensive. So the definition now is, quote, a process informed by both therapeutic and financial competencies that helps people think, feel, communicate, and behave differently with money to improve overall well-being through evidence-based practices and interventions. The FTA, the Financial Therapy Association, is an organization comprised of professionals dedicated to the integration of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, relational, and financial aspects of well-being, end quote. So those are the technical definitions. To me as a social worker and a financial therapist, I think about it as providing the cognitive, emotional, psychological, and systemic support around financial literacy so that people can take action on the steps that many people know they quote unquote should do or help them understand why it feels so complex to help dial down the shame and help to dial up the opportunities for them to make behavior change while feeling good about it. So I often define my work as less of how to make a budget and much more what's getting in the way, why does it feel so complicated? What are the emotions that are coming up? What patterns have you noticed if you've started and stopped a budget in the past? So I'm really thinking about everything else that contributes to the actual knowledge or tool in the world of personal finance. Yeah. Speaker 2 (6:57) Thank you for kind of digging into that because I'd like you to talk a little bit more about the difference of financial therapy versus financial advising or financial planning. Like how do those differ? Speaker 1 (7:10) So as a financial therapist, I stay in my clinical lane, so to speak, which means I am doing the things that I am trained to do, even though I'm cross-trained as a financial therapist in some of the basics of personal finance. I am not credentialed to, nor do I, do things like create a personalized financial plan. I don't tell people. What investments to pick in a retirement vehicle. I don't advise people on life insurance or different policies that they should or shouldn't have. I don't ever buy or sell anything for or with my clients. I'm not doing any of those things. I am very much staying in my lane of, if you think about a trauma therapist, their specialty is helping people with trauma, but they have... a breadth of expertise as a general therapist before they go into trauma therapy. So that's what I think about with a financial therapist work is you practice in your home discipline. So for people listening to this, it's most likely therapists, social workers, psychologists, et cetera. And then you have additional training so that you feel competent talking about money, but you're never advising or selling or managing. Speaker 2 (8:31) Yeah. Definitely focusing on that like behavioral, emotional connection to money. Yes. Not the nitty gritty of, okay, this is, these are the numbers that, you know, you need to put away or whatever to get to this retirement goal or, you know, et cetera. What are some of the things, topics that clients are bringing into therapy that they're struggling with? Speaker 1 (8:56) Oh, man, Taylor. We don't have enough time. Anything that you can imagine coming into the therapy room can be impacted by money, full stop. So whether you are working with somebody, I mean, I'm hesitating here because there is no domain that therapists practice in that isn't touched by money. especially in the United States, where money is so tied to access and safety. Money is going to impact every single one of our clients. And I think a big misnomer is once clients have enough, they won't be stressed by money anymore. And I completely disagree. I think that money impacts all of us. Of course, it's going to be more chronically stressful for folks who are in that paycheck to paycheck cycle or even below that they're actively in poverty but for people who are doing okay financially or who may even be you know top of the the financial food chain financial stress doesn't stop just because your paycheck or your net worth increases and that's a myth i think that we are peddled a lot in in the united states this idea that if you have more money It will solve all of your problems. Of course, it solves a lot of problems. I am not discounting that, but it doesn't. It's not a magic wand. Speaker 2 (10:23) Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. And I like just that framing of, honestly, regardless of what anyone is coming in to talk with you about, money is likely influencing their lives and struggles that they're going through. Yeah, this is a Financial Therapy 101. This is a Financial Therapy 101 conversation and your niche is financial therapy. But I think many of us who are doing therapy can use these tools while we're talking with individuals because I'm sure people listening to this see this come up in their work. So yeah, I'm super glad that we're having this conversation. How do you feel like the financial stress impacts mental health? Speaker 1 (11:12) Financial stress impacts our mental health because it impacts us at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is in our country, you need money in order to have access to food, shelter, clothing, and medicine. When we think about how money impacts our stress, if we don't have enough money or we don't have the skills to continually manage our money if we are earning enough, it's of course going to impact the things at the bottom, right? So we're thinking about all of the stress that comes along with any sort of chronic stressor. Having stress temporarily, as we know as therapists, is a normal part of our life and our body is responding in a way that it is supposed to. But with chronic stress, that's where it impacts other things in a longer term way. We know that financial stress might make you anxious in the moment, but it also could literally exacerbate existing anxiety disorders or exacerbate a depression diagnosis or exacerbate OCD, bipolar disorder. Any sort of disorder can be exacerbated when you have financial stress. And what we also know is that there's a bidirectional relationship between mental health and money. Specifically, the one that comes to mind is this two-way relationship between depression and debt. We know that people who have clinical depression are more likely to have debt, and we know that people who have debt are more likely to meet criteria for clinical depression. And when we think about this as clinicians, it makes a lot of sense that if a person has clinical depression, They are struggling with sleep. They are struggling with activities of daily living. They are amotivated. They can't focus. It is likely going to impact the way that they earn a living. And on the other hand, if somebody maybe was predisposed to depression and they are in debt. We have such a strong narrative in our country that debt is bad and that if you have debt, then you are bad. And so it makes perfect sense to me that a person would internalize having debt as shame, right? I'm bad. I'm wrong. I'm not smart. Whatever that internal dialogue is saying and almost unmask a clinical depression diagnosis that may not have shown up. Financial stress impacts everything, but it absolutely, as clinicians, we need to be aware of how it impacts our mental health. Speaker 2 (13:51) Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I want to talk a little bit kind of more about this individual experience and then want to go into just how this can impact family, you know, family dynamics relationships. Sure. I think you were kind of getting to this money scripts and the money beliefs. Speaker 2 (14:11) Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that? You know, our money story and just kind of how those things develop and how you kind of think about that? Speaker 1 (14:19) Yeah. So I'll take a step back because the way that we typically approach a financial stressor in the U.S. is the way we approach a lot of systemic issues. We make them an individual problem when they're really a systemic problem that is impacting individuals. So we see this all the time as, you know, I think back to that first social work job when a lot of my work in advocating for my clients and helping them navigate the system was doing things like making sure they had access to SNAP benefits or making sure they filled out the correct form so that they could get free bus tokens. And a lot of the prerequisites for financial. support is like, for example, if somebody were to fill out a form in order to get emergency financial services so that they could pay their rent, we often say, before we give you this money, you have to sit through a 90-minute class on how to manage it. Right. We tell people it's the same thing when we're talking about an unhoused person and we're saying, well, we will help you get off the street if you tell us that you applied to 10 jobs first. We assume that if we give people the tools to implement, then everything will change. But the problem is, again, going back to that hierarchy of needs, we cannot. turn off that financial stress in the example of a person who needs emergency financial assistance to pay their rent. If we say, learn how to manage this money, if that money is immediately going to go to making sure that they are staying housed, right? And that layers on this victim-blaming mentality. It can impact, again, a lot of the cognitive distortions or the negative self-talk that a client might have. Speaker 1 (16:19) Yeah, that's kind of the prerequisite. So how this ties into the money scripts and the money beliefs is a lot of therapists may go, OK, well, step one is we have to understand your money beliefs. And I think as clinicians, we need to kind of meet our clients where they're at, right? If a client is in an active depressive episode. you may not start with cognitive behavioral therapy, right? You might first get them to