I don't think my therapist has any serious money worries. But I have no idea, say, what kind of car he drives. Sometimes I wonder how I'd feel if I found out he drove some luxurious car. I always picture him in something like a Honda Accord.

Anyway, I would really urge folks to talk frankly about money, especially any money-related stress, in session. The psychotherapist Ryan Howes wrote about financial stress and how common it is and yet how strangely taboo it is in therapy. Polite people supposedly don't talk about sex, death, religion, and money....but all the stuff that's off limits for polite talk is supposed to be the stuff of therapy.

Even if a therapist seems wealthy now, there's no way of knowing what they could relate to. A doctor who dines out now might have spent her early career eating packs of ramen noodles that cost 25 cents each and worrying about her car payment. Or maybe a therapist is the first in her family to go to college and has close relatives living on disability. There is no way to know unless you talk about it. I even think it's OK to be angry about it. As in, "You have no serious money worries, and yet I do and I have to pay you $100 an hour to talk about it." Life feels super unfair sometimes. And that is all therapy stuff, no?