TAP Talk - Cathy Towers on 'Filthy Lucre: Therapists Relationship with Money

On 15 September the greatly anticipated presentation by Cathy Towers entitled `Filthy Lucre – Therapists Relationship with Money` took place at the Friends Meeting House, Taunton and as expected attracted a large audience.   Cathy is a Workshop Leader and Speaker and Mind and Body Therapist with over 30 years experience and is based in the Exmouth area.

Cathy began her talk with a classic pop song extolling the virtues of money and with the distribution of chocolate coins.  This quickly moved into Freud’s obsession with his poorhouse neurosis and his strict viewpoint on charging for his services.  The audience heard how in modern times, the therapist’s relationship with money is often fraught and so requires the therapist to make decisions on charging based on a clear, coherent and consistent rational.   

Cathy explained how she used to rent out rooms to therapists, only to find that they would put in their leaflets and just wait for something to happen.  Because they had not addressed the issue of marketing or constructed a viable business plan, many of these enterprises were doomed to failure.  With quite a brave change of policy, Cathy began to turn down many of the applications for rooms and instead started to have people that she felt had thoroughly researched their venture.  However this initially resulted in a drastic plummeting of her income.

The question of a free counselling service was addressed and the audience heard how at one point Cathy worked for such an agency.   Even though there was no charge, attendance was poor with only 70% of clients actually keeping their appointments.  This changed significantly however, when a fee was introduced and attendance increased to 90%.  This shift appears to indicate the lack of accountability attached to pro bona work.

Interacting with the audience, Cathy explored attitudes to money and found it can represent success, freedom and can enhance self esteem.  The downside was seen as shame, either at having too much or too little.  The talk concluded with the audience dividing themselves into three groups – those who regard themselves as charging averagely, higher than average and those below the average.   This exercise, although light-hearted, focused many on their own charging structure.

Tea and coffee was served following a vote of thanks by TAP Council member David Trott and a warm round of applause acknowledged an enjoyable and educational presentation by Cathy. 

The next TAP Talk takes place on Friday 20 October when Lisa Foote speaks on the subject of `Looking Beyond labels – Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder.  However, before then TAP has a Saturday workshop on 7 October when Paul Sunderland presents `An Introduction to Modern Addictions: The Financial, Work, Sex and Love Addictions. How do they work and how can we treat them?  To book a place at this rare event, please phone 01823 661601 

---