Tony White

I always find it a delight to see human nature in action. The human mind at work. One thing we are so good at is lying to ourselves and deceiving ourselves, convincing our selves that something is true when it is not.


This isn't actually happening



Fellow blogger Phoebe provided a link to a news article titled,

Wall Street woes boost therapists' business

Because of the down turn in the market Wall Street traders and bankers are suffering from anxiety and depression. They are seeking out psychotherapists to help them with their tales of woe. Business is booming in psychotherapy on Wall Street apparently.

So what would I do as a Wall Street psychotherapist with this new surge of clientele?. Firstly I would deal with kindness and compassion to their new found feelings of reactive depression and anxiety. Then I would do one other thing, I would say, “What the heck did you set yourself up like that for!”

If there ever was a truism in life then it is this - the market will go up and then the market will go down, and then up and then down and so on. Every one of those Wall Street traders knew this. That is what you learn in first year high school economics for heavens sake. So what’s with all the depression and anxiety when exactly what they knew was going to happen, has indeed happened.


I'm OK.



Of course what I am doing is searching for how they have lied to themselves. How has their own Child ego state tricked itself into believing something that is not true. The Child will have in some way explained away reality.
“Next time it wont be so bad” or
“Some how this time it wont really effect me” or
“I learnt from last time so I wont be burnt again”.
The Child will bring out its magical thinking and thus the trader sets himself up for more of his racket feelings when the market does exactly what he knows is inevitable.

Now if they want to feel their racket anxiety then I am fine with that. That is their business and their choice. What I do ask them to do is to be open and honest with them self about it. Just be open and honest that they are again setting them self up for their racket, then they can go and do what they like.


What's my racket!




I saw a guy on the TV the other day. He was most distraught as his house had been flooded out and ruined. The usual TV thing, he is interviewed in front of his decimated house. Indeed a tragic and bad thing to happen to him and I wish it hadn’t.

Then he made a very interesting statement which brought consoling caring sounds from the journalists around him. He said, “Nature can be very cruel at times”. There it was human nature in action and the delightful Child at work right before my eyes. As we know of course he didn’t get flooded out because nature is mean and nasty, he got flooded out because he built his house where it happens to flood.

The man knows that, even if it only floods once every 20 years. It has flooded there before and he knows it will flood there again. But his Child will swing into action with it various magical thinking and its telling of porky pies.
“It wont be this bad next time” or
“We will be better prepared next time”.
If you can realistically be better prepared for the flooding why wasn’t it done last time?

So that is what I would do as a Wall Street psychotherapist. Deal with the feelings at hand and then secondly look at how they set self up for an emotional fall. Then comes the big question - will you do it again? Search out for the Child lies that the trader is telling himself and then at least he can be aware of when he is again lying to himself in the future


It is this part of us that has a big (the biggest?) say in the decisions we make in life.



I wonder if the Wall Street psychotherapists will do the second part. Hey, business is business!

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