Healing financial trauma

The role of mindfulness and therapy in breaking generational patterns

Abstract

Financial post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is defined as chronic stress associated with meeting one’s financial obligations. Not only do sufferers of financial PTSD experience socioeconomic challenges with their condition, according to brain imaging data, sufferers also experience physical health symptoms through altered activation in several regions of the brain. Further, like PTSD, financial PTSD can be hereditary where it can be passed from one generation to the next. To help treat patients of PTSD, mindfulness practices like meditation and financial therapy have been shown to be effective. Implications for practice are discussed and future research areas are suggested.