Managing Challenging Conversations with Financial Counseling Clients

Abstract

Seeking financial counseling can be a difficult decision for clients to make. They may seek help for a variety of reasons including personal control issues (such as overspending), financial crisis (such as job loss or bankruptcy), or couple-related issues (such as divorce or dispute over spending). Alternatively, individuals may seek financial counseling to improve or take preventive measures toward a neutral or even positive situation. In any case, revealing personal financial information is generally considered a private affair and can induce stress. Having a set of tools to manage challenging conversations with clients will assist with more productive meetings. Challenging conversations are grouped by external and internal challenges. External challenges are contextual in nature; the client is in a challenging position based on circumstances at that particular point in time. External challenges describe where the client is, but do not address feelings associated with the context. Internal challenges account for the client’s emotional reaction to the external challenges.