Financial Trauma Part 2

Why do I have a hard time maintaining employment and shelter? This is part of our discussion on financial trauma. In this episode we talk about what may drive the decisions of individuals who financially struggle with the basic psychological and safety needs of food and shelter.

Financial trauma refers to problematic ways you emotionally react to money, the cognitive processes in your thinking and language, how you behave with money, and the somatic symptoms that manifest when there is financial gain, loss or distress. Experiences of poverty, loss of physiological needs, and threats to one's safety needs will rewire the brain with a response of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These responses will create a negative feedback loop of reward and guilt, inhibiting healthy engagement with money.