Psychology of Financial Planning

CHAPTER 9Solution‐Focused Techniques in Financial Planning

Take a moment to consider this unusual question:

Tonight, while you're sleeping, a miracle happens and your biggest financial concerns are now solved. What would be the first signs you would notice in your life? What would other people notice? How would your thinking change? What would you be doing differently? How would it feel?

During the discovery process, financial planners learn about a client's past financial experiences because in order to help someone get to where they want to go, it is useful to know how they got to where they are now. The biases, life experiences, and habits that led to a client's financial situation need to be recognized and accounted for in order to move forward. While there are often changes that need to be made, there is also great benefit in focusing on what the client has been doing that has been successful, with an emphasis on reinforcing those efforts and looking to do more of the same. This is where solution‐focused techniques in financial planning come in.

Solution‐focused therapy (SFT) is an approach to counseling that draws a client's attention toward utilizing their positive characteristics, strengths, skills, and assets to set and work toward goals for the future. Instead of focusing on what hasn't worked in the past, the solution‐focused approach highlights the possibilities of the future. SFT has been used in a variety of fields, including marriage and family therapy, health ...