Vicky Reynal, a financial psychotherapist with nearly a decade of experience in psychology and psychotherapy, has carved a unique niche in the mental health field. By combining her understanding of emotional health with savvy financial know how, she is able to meet her clients deeply rooted struggles with money. Reynal’s practice has only recently gained serious traction. It has now opened its doors to people from all economic statuses who have difficulties in their financial behavior and feelings.
Drawing on her extensive reading about renowned investor Warren Buffett, Reynal asserts that understanding one’s emotions surrounding money is just as crucial as grasping the financial concepts themselves. Her experience with therapy became the catalyst that changed her life. After learning how powerful it can be to process feelings around money, she knew she wanted to work in this underexplored niche of psychotherapy.
Reynal’s clients vary immensely in their wealth. Her expert guidance empowers individuals living paycheck to paycheck who may have been made to feel ashamed of their purchases. She serves wealthy clients who have a hard time spending money for themselves. She specializes in working with clients that are more of a quantitative, logical thinker. Kids really have a hard time when it comes to spending or saving.
Through her practice, Reynal emphasizes the need to explore what people think and feel about money. She thinks these attitudes usually reflect the lessons they were taught growing up. She is already seeing that the demand for this type of specialization has grown. There are almost no research articles or textbooks that examine the field of financial psychotherapy.
As a South Texas attorney, Reynal’s persona and presence are inseparable from her practice. Patients constantly rave about her down-to-earth attitude. They attempt to identify her ethnicity or racial background, shaped by their perceptions of her warmth and empathy. Some folks find her intimidating and guess that she hails from an East European country. Some see her as warm and nurturing, an opinion based on the belief that she has Mediterranean or South American ancestry.
“People try to guess where I’m from, and their guesses tell me so much about their internal world.” – Vicky Reynal
It’s an approach that Reynal has successfully been soft and reassuring about. As soon as she began promoting herself as such, more patients began actively looking for her expertise. Most people don’t know that financial psychotherapists even exist. This reaction points to a stunning level of ignorance about this new modality.
Financial issues are impossibly tangled with the deeper emotional challenges. Reynal invites clients to explore their feelings surrounding money, asking questions such as, “Why am I buying this thing?” or “What’s the longing behind that?” She’s passionate about helping others recognize these emotional triggers and find personal, transformative insights that help them grow.
“We can’t all afford therapy. But opening up that curiosity can be enough: why am I buying this thing? Or why am I feeling guilty about spending money on that thing, if I have enough for it? What’s the longing behind that?” – Vicky Reynal
For Reynal, what’s most important is understanding that financial decisions are not only numbers on a spreadsheet – they are often highly emotional judgments. She’s adamant that this isn’t simply about taking emotion out of decision making. Rather, it’s simply about understanding the feelings that motivate us to act.
“It’s not about stripping emotions out of financial decisions,” – Vicky Reynal
She points out that people sometimes use financial language to describe other emotional desires. For example, instead of letting loose a Freudian need for love, people will accuse someone of being “cheap.” This linguistic pattern not only reveals our anxiety about what others have, but speaks to a greater societal focus on social comparison and the idea that money = happiness.
“There’s this idea that is quite common that money will fix everything,” – Vicky Reynal.
Reynal pushes back against this idea by reminding us that just because you’re financially stable doesn’t mean you’re emotionally happy. She argues that people with plenty of money can be unhappy and have unspent wishes.
“There’s this manic level of social comparison,” – Vicky Reynal.
In her therapeutic practice, Reynal hopes to shed light on these unexpected connections between emotional experiences and financial behaviors. What she expresses is something she thinks these relationships may seem like they’re obscure at first. Primarily, they show unsatisfied dreams and wishes that her clients never seem to get fulfilled.
“They are non-obvious links on the surface … but they help us get to the real longing underneath, the real unmet desire,” – Vicky Reynal.
Reynal’s work to develop financial psychotherapy was first inspired by an epiphany as a young, traditional psychotherapist in training. She was curious about why there is so much discussion around relationships with food, sex, and other critical domains of life. The impact of these financial relationships is largely unexamined.
“I thought, ‘Wait a minute, we are talking about our relationship with food, with sex, with people, why aren’t we talking about people’s relationship with money?’” – Vicky Reynal.
She found clients often start with their financial issues when reporting on their lives. This revelation motivated her to begin incorporating conversations about finances organically into her therapy sessions.
Vicky Reynal is urgently inventing her practice further. She is deeply committed to walking people through their complicated, yet often simple, relationships with money. Her work underscores the importance of addressing emotional barriers to financial well-being, allowing clients to gain a clearer understanding of their spending habits and financial decisions.
Reynal’s big win in this emerging space is a promising indication that the importance of mental health and financial literacy coming together is being recognized. Increasingly, people are recognizing the importance of unpacking their emotional attachment to finances through therapy.
“They were saying: ‘I didn’t know a money psychotherapist existed, and I need your help,’” – Vicky Reynal.
Never before have so many Americans been in search of deep, holistic advice on their spending habits and mental health. Reynal’s approach exposes a crucial missing ingredient from personal finance that the traditional financial planning industry has long ignored. With her expertise and compassionate approach, she empowers her clients to confront their emotional issues around money. This empowerment translates into meaningful impacts on their overall quality of life.