Money Matters: A Case Study of a Therapist's and a Family's Joint Enactment of Monetary Issues in Family Therapy

Family therapists in private practice are required to negotiate monetary issues with clients regularly. However, therapists may hold conflicting feelings about receiving payments in family therapy, given the mix of therapeutic and financial implications. Such internal conflicts may be enacted and contribute to unhelpful consequences when families also bring their own monetary conflicts into the therapeutic setting. This paper outlines a case study of a joint enactment of monetary issues, where the family silently misses payment for several sessions, and the therapist responds first with silence and then with a clumsy, nontherapeutic attempt to address the issue. The family drops out of therapy but fortuitously returns later and provides a context for their monetary issues, which contributes to a positive therapeutic outcome and highlights several important implications for family therapy in private practice.