Wealth therapy for the rich

Level 3 l Advanced
1 Warmer
Think of three different ways to complete each sentence.
• It’s really … to have lots of money.
• Money can’t buy … .

2 Key words
Find the key words in the article and write them next to the definitions below. The paragraph numbers are
given to help you.

1. problems and worries _______________________ (title)

2. described someone in a particular way _______________________ (para 6)
3. people who receive money, property etc from someone who has died _______________________
(para 7)
4. an insulting word for an annoying child who behaves badly _______________________ (para 7)
5. blame someone for something that is not their fault _______________________ (para 7)
6. have no money _______________________ (para 9)
7. the attitudes or behaviour of someone who thinks they are better than other people
_______________________ (para 10)
8. something such as money or property that a person or company owns _______________________ (para 13)
9. the amount of money or the property, income etc that someone has _______________________ (para 15)
10. record something in writing _______________________ (para 16)
11. a well-known phrase that says something about life and human experience _______________________
(para 16)
12. secretive or hidden _______________________ (para 17)
13. refuse to accept that something might be true or important _______________________ (para 17)
14. things that people do not talk about because they are very offensive or shocking _______________________
(para 18)
15. consider that something is not important _______________________ (para 20)
16. fair and reasonable _______________________ (para 20)
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NEWS LESSONS / Wealth therapy for the rich / Advanced

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Wealth therapy for the rich
Level 3 l Advanced
Wealth therapy tackles woes of the
rich: ‘It’s really isolating to have lots
of money’
Jana Kasperkevic in New York
17 October, 2015
1 Clay Cockrell is sitting in his office at Columbus
Circle, across the street from 1 Central Park West,
which houses Trump International Hotel and Tower.
In front of the tower is Central Park, where Cockrell
holds his popular walk and talk therapy sessions.
2 Cockrell, a former Wall Street worker turned
therapist, spends large parts of his days walking
through Central Park or the Battery Park in
downtown Manhattan near Wall Street, as a
confidant and counsellor to some of New York’s
wealthiest people.
3 “I shifted towards it naturally,” he said of his becoming
an expert in wealth therapy. “Many of the extremely
wealthy – the 1% of the 1% – feel that their problems
are really not problems. But they are. A lot of
therapists do not give enough weight to their issues.”
4 So, what issues are America’s 1% struggling with?
“There is guilt over being rich in the first place,” he
said. “There is the feeling that they have to hide
the fact that they are rich. And, then, there is the
isolation – being in the 1%, it turns out, can be
lonely.” It seems F Scott Fitzgerald was right: the
very rich “are different from you and me”.
5 Counsellors argue things have become worse since
the financial crisis and the debate over income
inequality that has been spurred on by movements
like Occupy Wall Street and the Fight for $15 fair
wage campaign.
6 “The Occupy Wall Street movement was a good one
and had some important things to say about income
inequality but it singled out the 1% and painted
them globally as something negative,” said Jamie
Traeger-Muney, a wealth psychologist and founder
of the Wealth Legacy Group. The media, she said,
is partly to blame for making the rich “feel like they
need to hide or feel ashamed”.
7 Traeger-Muney runs a global firm and specializes
in working with inheritors, who often get a bad
reputation in the press. “You can come up with lots of
words and sayings about inheritors – not one of them
is positive: spoilt brat, born with a silver spoon in
their mouth, trust-fund babies, all these things,” she
said, adding that it’s “easy to scapegoat the rich”.
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2015
NEWS LESSONS / Wealth therapy for the rich / Advanced
8 “Sometimes, I am shocked by things that people
say. You would never refer to another group of
people in the way that it seems perfectly normal to
refer to wealth holders.”
9 “It’s really isolating to have a lot of money. People’s
reactions to you can be scary,” said Barbara
Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology. “We are
all taught not to talk about money. It’s not polite to
talk about money. Ironically, it’s harder to talk about
having money than it is to talk about not having
money. It’s much more socially acceptable to say ‘I
am broke. Things are hard.’ You can’t say ‘I have a
ton of money.’ You have to keep a lot of your
life private.”
10 As a result, Cockrell points out, the rich tend to hang
out with other rich Americans, not out of snobbery
but in order to be around those who understand
them and their problems.
11 The growing gap between the rich and poor is a
global phenomenon. According to Oxfam, the richest
1% have seen their share of global wealth increase
from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014 and are on track
to own more than the other 99% by 2016.
12 In the US, over the last three decades, the wealth
owned by the top 0.1% households increased from
7% to 22% even as the wealth of the bottom 90% of
households declined.
13 The number of extremely wealthy people has also
been climbing. According to research from Spectrem
Group, in 2014, the number of US households with
$1m or more in assets – excluding the value of their
primary home – increased by 500,000 to 10.1m. In
2007, that number was 9.2m. Households worth
$5m or more reached 1.3m and 142,000 households
are now worth $25m or more.
14 Since the 2008 financial crisis, the income gap
has expanded and the situation “has gotten worse
for the wealthy”, Cockrell said. The main reason?
Not knowing if your friends are friends with you or
your money.
15 “Someone else who is also a billionaire – they
don’t want anything from you. Never being able
to trust your friendships with people of different
means, I think that is difficult,” said Cockrell. “As
the gap has widened, the rich have become more
and more isolated.”
16 These are real fears faced by the richest of the
rich. In 2007, the Gates Foundation teamed
up with Boston College’s Center on Wealth
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Wealth therapy for the rich
Level 3 l Advanced
and Philanthropy to document what it felt like 19 Speaking in his soft, soothing voice that makes
to be in America’s 1%. For the next four years, you want to spill all your worries, Cockrell said
researchers surveyed 165 of America’s richest that a common mistake that many of his wealthy
households – 120 of those households have at clients make is letting their money define them.
least $25m in assets. The average net worth of
20 “I don’t think it’s healthy to discount your
those surveyed was $78m. The resulting study,
problems. If you are part of the 1%, you still
The Joys and Dilemmas of Wealth, was 500
have problems and they are legitimate to you.
pages long and seemed to prove the old adage
Even when you say, ‘I don’t have to struggle for
that money can’t buy happiness.
money’, there are other parts of your life. Money
17 “Wealth can be a barrier to connecting with is not the only thing that defines you,” he said.
other people,” confessed a spouse of a tech “Your problems are legitimate.”
entrepreneur who made about $80m. Some
© Guardian News and Media 2015
Americans have taken to keeping their wealth
First published in The Guardian, 17/10/15
secret. “We talk about it as stealth wealth. There
are a lot of people that are hiding their wealth
because they are concerned about negative
judgment,” said Traeger-Muney. If wealthy
Americans talk about the unique challenges that
come with their wealth, people often dismiss
their experience.
18 “People say ‘Oh, poor you.’ There is not a lot of
sympathy there,” she said. “Wealth is still one of
our last taboos.”

3 Comprehension check
Answer the questions in as much detail as you can, if possible without referring back to the article.

1. Where and how does Clay Cockrell help the extremely wealthy?
2. According to him, what problems do the richest 1% have?
3. Who does he say the rich keep company with and why?
4. Who or what does Jamie Traeger-Muney blame for making the rich feel ashamed?
5. Even after excluding the value of their first home, how many millionaires were there in the US in 2014?
6. How many US households are currently worth over $25m?
7. Which two organizations carried out the study The Joys and Dilemmas of Wealth?
8. What is stealth wealth?
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NEWS LESSONS / Wealth therapy for the rich / Advanced

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Wealth therapy for the rich
Level 3 l Advanced
4 Expressions
a. Divide the expressions into two groups, those used to talk about the wealthy and those used to talk
about therapy.
1. walk and talk therapy
2. a spoilt brat
3. confidant and counsellor
4. born with a silver spoon in their mouth
5. trust-fund babies
6. spill all your worries

b. Discuss the meanings of the expressions.

c. Use at least three of the expressions in sentences of your own.

5 Empathy
Can you imagine what it might feel like to be one of America’s wealthiest 1%? Make a list of problems that
an extremely wealthy person might have.

Would you want to be in this demographic group? Why? Why not?

6 Discussion
Discuss the use of irony in the quote. Do you agree that wealth is one of the last taboos?

People say ‘Oh, poor

you.’ There is not a lot of
sympathy there. Wealth is still one
of our last taboos.

7 Webquest
Find out more about the Occupy Wall Street movement. How do you feel about the movement and
its message? How would you feel about it if you were one of America’s extremely wealthy?
Find out more about the report The Joys and Dilemmas of Wealth here:
blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/03/09/dont-envy-the-super-rich-they-are-miserable/
and read Oxfam’s report here:
www.oxfam.org.uk/blogs/2015/01/richest-1-per-cent-will-own-more-than-all-the-rest-by-2016
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NEWS LESSONS / Wealth therapy for the rich / Advanced

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Wealth therapy for the rich
Level 3 l Advanced
KEY

2 Key words 4 Expressions

1. woes a. and b.
2. painted
3. inheritors the wealthy
4. brat 2. a child who is spoilt behaves badly if they do not
5. scapegoat get what they want, because people have always
6. broke given them everything they want
7. snobbery 4. to have advantages because you come from a
8. assets rich family
9. means 5. people who are independently wealthy and do not
10. document need to work to earn a living
11. adage
12. stealth therapy
13. dismiss 1. therapy that consists of the therapist and the client
14. taboos walking outside during the therapy session, rather
15. discount than sitting inside
16. legitimate 3. someone who you trust and can discuss your
secrets and private feelings with; someone whose
job is to give advice and help to people
3 Comprehension check with problems
6. tell someone your worries when you would
1. He acts as a counsellor and confidant during his normally have kept them secret
walk and talk therapy sessions in New York’s
Central and Battery Parks.
2. They are isolated, have no one to talk to, feel guilty 5 Empathy
about being rich, feel they have to hide their wealth
and don’t accept that their problems are really Teacher’s note: You could ask students to write
problems. another list to include problems that the extremely poor
3. other rich people who are able to understand them might face and, then, discuss what has been written
4. the media and who the students empathize with most.
5. 10.1 million
6. 142,000
7. the Gates Foundation and Boston College’s Center
on Wealth and Philanthropy
8. when people hide their wealth in order to avoid
being judged negatively
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NEWS LESSONS / Wealth therapy for the rich / Advanced

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