Episode Introduction

Welcome to this deep and honest conversation on the intersection of money and relational trauma. In this episode of Money Skills for Therapists, I join host Linzy Bonham to explore how our early experiences with relational trauma shape not only our psychological well-being but also our relationship with money. For many of us who grew up in dysfunctional or chaotic family environments, money can be a source of fear, confusion, or even scarcity. Healing those wounds requires addressing both the emotional and financial patterns that keep us stuck.

Drawing from my own journey—from growing up with complex financial instability to building a private practice and creating financial security—I share practical insights into how therapists and health practitioners can empower themselves financially while continuing their healing work. We discuss why setting your rates well is an act of self-care, how financial resources create freedom to set boundaries and seek healing, and tools that helped me develop a sober, strong relationship with money.

Whether you’re a therapist navigating the challenges of running a private practice or anyone interested in trauma recovery, this episode offers compassionate clarity on why psychological empowerment and financial empowerment are inseparable. Together, Linzy and I dive into tangible strategies and mindset shifts that can help you build a future grounded in safety, choice, and healing.

Key Takeaways

• Financial well-being and psychological empowerment are deeply interconnected, especially for those recovering from relational trauma.
• Money creates freedom and choice, enabling survivors to establish boundaries and access healing resources like therapy.
• Setting your therapy rates confidently models financial self-care and empowerment to your clients.
• Developing a sober, non-magical relationship with money takes time, tools, and intentional mindset work.
• Maintaining a financial safety net—including insurances and emergency funds—provides peace of mind and better sleep.
• Consistent money management practices, such as using budgeting tools like YNAB and regular financial check-ins, build lasting financial clarity.
• Connecting with future self through visualization can be a powerful motivator for saving and planning.

Notable Quotes

“Money, wellbeing, and psychological empowerment go hand in hand together. Without financial resources, psychological empowerment can only take you so far.”

“In charging decent, good rates and managing your money well, you are modeling for your clients what it means to take good care of yourself.”

“I have a sober and strong relationship with money now. I don’t live in magical thinking, nor fear and scarcity. I’ve built long-term financial security for my family.”

“One of the biggest emotional impacts of financial wellbeing is the ability to sleep better at night, knowing you have a safety net and unexpected expenses are covered.”

“Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Your work is your wealth, so you must take care of yourself to sustain your income and healing.”

Topics Covered

• Relational Trauma and Money: How early family dysfunction and trauma influence adult financial patterns and emotional relationships with money.
• Financial Empowerment for Therapists: The importance of setting appropriate rates and managing business finances to model self-care and stability.
• Personal Money Journey: Annie’s story of growing up with financial instability, living in poverty, and navigating a path toward financial sobriety and security.
• Tools for Financial Clarity: Practical resources like YNAB, financial planners, and visualization techniques to create sustainable money management habits.
• Balancing Present Enjoyment and Future Security: Navigating the tension between spending for quality of life now and saving for long-term goals.
• Creating Safety Nets: The role of insurances, emergency funds, and thoughtful budgeting in reducing financial anxiety.
• Resources for Relational Trauma Recovery: Annie’s online course Hard Families, Good Boundaries and free content for those healing from complex family dynamics.

Full Transcript

Linzy Bonham: Yes, yeah, absolutely. That’s a powerful one, but also keeping my daughter’s photo on the table is my other biggest motivator. And I mean that in all the ways, showing up and doing well professionally, making sound decisions. But even during those months where I’m like, is it really worth spending this much on long-term disability insurance and remembering that if I, you know, something God forbid happens to me, we will still have income flowing in by me paying that insurance every month. That will support her and her education and her goals. So I think finding one or two or three sources of motivation is very important because there are a lot of expenses that can come for, you know, from really taking care of yourself while in the future.

Linzy Bonham: And it’s good to have a couple of different sources of motivation. As a private practice owner, you need a bank that’s truly built for your business. No more fees, no bookkeeping problems during tax season, and especially no branch visits since those never make it into your schedule anyway. You need the unicorn of all banks and Relay, an online banking and money management platform, is that unicorn. There are no account fees, no overdraft fees, and no minimum balances. So you get to put your money towards what matters most to you.

Linzy Bonham: Relay is also the official banking partner for Profit First, the tried and true budgeting method that I’ve been using and teaching for years. That’s why Relay is my number one recommendation for American private practice owners who want financial clarity and ease built right into their banking. With Relay, you can easily automate your Profit First percentages by instantly creating up to 20 accounts, earn interest on every spare dollar with your Relay savings accounts, and provide secure read-only access to your accountant or bookkeeper. Best of all, it’s free to apply and it only takes 10 minutes. Use my link www.relayfi.com/linzy and get a $50 signup bonus once you fund your account. Relay is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by ThreadBank, who is a member of the FDIC.

Linzy Bonham: Today’s conversation is with Annie Wright. Annie Wright is one of my business besties. She is a licensed psychotherapist who is all about supporting the well-being of those who, although they didn’t have good childhoods, want to have wonderful adulthoods. I’ve known Annie for several years. She’s a business friend turned real friend. And today we dig into the connection between psychological well-being and financial well-being. Annie is so tangible and clear on the importance of financial well-being to support our psychological well-being. I love the points that she makes. And they particularly apply to those of us who grew up in dysfunctional families. Annie also explores how setting your rates can really model financial empowerment and self-care to your clients in this very tangible way, which is a point that I love.

Linzy Bonham: So often as therapists, we struggle with the idea that raising our rates is doing harm to our clients. And she has some wonderful insights into how doing that can actually be the exact opposite. She also discussed how she overcame her own complex childhood and experiences of money really being there and really not being there to create a very sober relationship with money as an adult and really create the security that is so important to her as an adult for herself and for her family.

Linzy Bonham: Annie is a national expert in relational trauma and recovery. She owns a boutique therapy center in Berkeley, California, where she does one-on-one therapy services and where she also oversees a staff of talented trauma-informed clinicians. And she’s also a published mental health author and produces great digital content and online courses to support people who are recovering from relational trauma. Here’s Annie Wright. So welcome, Annie. I’m so glad that you’re here today.

Annie Wright: I am so excited to be here, Lindsay. Thank you.

Linzy Bonham: Yeah. So I’m really curious for you, given that this podcast is about money, what do you see as the relationship between financial well-being and financial empowerment and psychological well-being and empowerment?

Annie Wright: I think they’re inextricably interconnected. And yes, so I’m a licensed psychotherapist. My niche in the world is relational trauma recovery. And so what that means is I’m typically working with folks clinically or supervising my staff through my center. The folks that they see are coming from backgrounds in which they were raised by mood or personality disordered parents or homes where a lot of addictions or chaos took place, leading to kind of a host of complex developmental impacts for those individuals.

Annie Wright: So given that that’s my population group, I really truly believe that money wellbeing and psychological empowerment go hand in hand together, particularly for that population group. And what I mean by that is as we do the work to psychologically empower and esteem ourselves, maybe individuate from our dysfunctional families of origin, psychological empowerment can help only up to a certain extent. And then you have to have resources in order sometimes to make choices that can ultimately be the most healing for you.

Annie Wright: For instance, if you are without money, without resources, if you’re not financially well, and you live at home with abusive or dysfunctional parents and you don’t have the money to get your own apartment or to leave even the city or state where you grew up, that’s an issue, right? With more financial empowerment, you create more choices to not rely on dysfunctional or abusive grandparents to watch your child or to quite frankly, get into good trauma therapy or to purchase hotels or Airbnb as a rental car so you don’t have to stay and rely on those folks.

Annie Wright: I think that having money gives us more freedom, it gives us more choices and particularly for the population group I serve, and frankly, from the very background that I come from, financial empowerment is every bit as important as psychological empowerment.

Linzy Bonham: I love that because it’s so practical. That’s something that I think you and I have in common when it comes to money, it’s very practical about it. We think about like, what can it do?

Annie Wright: Oh, definitely. From a very practical perspective, money allows you to like create those boundaries and space from relationships that can be harmful to you.

Linzy Bonham: Absolutely. Well, I think not only allows you to have those boundaries and to create space and to create choices, and quite honestly, it lets you do some of the healing work that’s required if you were raised in an environment like that. I think many folks come to me when they’re finally starting to earn enough money or they are finally in a job that actually has health benefits that can cover even a portion of therapy fees. And so we see very concretely there that their ability to have earned money and to empower themselves up to a certain extent, bought them a resource that can then further their psychological healing.

Annie Wright: So I do think the two go hand in hand. And I think that’s a really important message for the therapists and health practitioners who are listening because in our professions, we have quite a bit of control, even though people might not feel that way, we have quite a bit of control over the money that we bring in. And something that I noticed with so many of us is we’re so focused on like our clients’ needs or stories about what they can afford or what’s right or feeling guilty about making money that sometimes therapists even limit what they could be earning because those other stories are kind of running them, right?

Linzy Bonham: Oh, sure, sure.

Annie Wright: I have yet to meet a therapist who isn’t immune to that at some level.

Linzy Bonham: Yes, absolutely. But what I’m hearing is for the therapists, especially who come from the kinds of backgrounds that you’re talking about, there’s actually like an extra level to what earning can do for them.

… [Transcript continues in full, formatted with speaker labels and paragraphs] …