Spending, Saving, and Self-Worth: What’s Behind Our Money Secrets?
Money is one of the most emotionally charged topics in modern life, but we often treat it as purely practical. We are expected to be “good with money”: earn more, save more, budget properly, as if money only belongs in bank accounts.
In psychodynamic counselling, we understand that money is never just money. And money problems are rarely only about money. In a strange way, bankers and bank robbers are both focused on the same thing: money. One tries to control it, protect it, and build security through it. The other tries to take it, break the rules around it, or “win” it through force. They look like opposites, but they can stem from similar feelings beneath the surface: fear, shame, powerlessness, anger, or the need to feel safe.
This is why money is rarely just money. It often carries deep emotional meaning. And when we understand what money represents to us, we can relate to it with less anxiety, less secrecy, and more freedom.
Psychodynamic counselling helps people explore questions like:
Why do I avoid looking at my bank account?
Why do I panic even when I earn enough?
Why do I overspend when I feel lonely?
Why do I feel guilty spending on myself?
Why do I hide debt or feel embarrassed about my income?
Why does money feel tied to love, worth, or security?
Money as Safety and Power
Freud linked money to survival and safety. Money can buy food, shelter, comfort, and protection. Money is also tied to power: independence, freedom, and choice. It allows us to say no, set boundaries, leave unhealthy situations, or feel in control.
For some people, money becomes emotional armour: “If I have enough, I won’t need anyone.”
Money and Sex: Secretive and Conflicted
Freud also wrote about the symbolic link between money and sexuality. And it’s striking how similarly money and sex are treated in many cultures.
Both can feel private, shameful, linked to power, and hard to speak about honestly. Many people speak more openly about grief than they do about debt. Others feel deeply exposed talking about salary. That is because money often feels like a measure of who we are, not just what we have.
Money, Dirt, and Shame
Freud noticed that in myths and fairy tales, money is often linked with dirt and waste. He quoted an ancient Babylonian belief: “Gold is the faeces of Hell.” It sounds extreme, but the idea behind it is simple: money often carries feelings of disgust, guilt, and shame. Even our everyday language shows this: filthy rich””, “dirty money, “money laundering”, “flushing money away”, etc.
Freud believed our relationship with money starts very early, before we even understand what money is. One of the first major experiences of control and shame in childhood is toilet training. To adults, toilet training is practical. To a child, it is emotional. It teaches early messages like:
“This is acceptable.”
“This is disgusting.”
“This is good.”
“This is shameful.”
“This must be controlled.”
“Adults react strongly to what I produce.”
Freud believed money can later carry similar feelings: control, pride, shame, anxiety, and fear of being judged. This is why money can feel so private, and so uncomfortable to talk about.
Why Money Shame Happens
Money shame can show up whether you have a lot or very little. Some people feel ashamed of wealth because they fear:
“People will envy me.”
“People will judge me.”
“I don’t deserve this.”
“I have become someone my family resents.”
Others feel ashamed of struggling because it triggers thoughts like:
“I’m failing.”
“I’m behind.”
“I’m not respectable.”
“I’m not lovable.”
Personality Patterns Through the Lens of Money
Money often becomes the stage where deeper personality patterns play out. In psychodynamic counselling, we explore these patterns not as “bad habits,” but as emotional strategies, ways the mind tries to create safety, control, love, or protection.
I will use fairy tales as examples because they use symbolism and emotional themes, making unconscious patterns around money, shame, love, and power easier to understand. Fairy tales often dramatise these money dynamics beautifully, because they show what money symbolises rather than what it buys.
People-pleaser / “I must earn love”
Early development: Love felt conditional; you were praised only when helpful, compliant, or successful.
Money pattern: you overwork, give money away, and feel guilty spending on yourself.
Fairy tale example: Cinderella
Cinderella earns approval through service. She works constantly, stays quiet, and learns that her value lies in being useful. Even when she is mistreated, she keeps going, as if she must “deserve” kindness. In monetary terms, this resembles someone who overworks, undercharges, and feels anxious about spending on themselves, because rest or pleasure feels undeserved.
Avoidant / emotionally distant
Early development: You learned early that depending on people leads to pain.
Money pattern: You use money to avoid closeness, treat relationships as transactional, and keep emotional distance through independence.
Fairy tale example: The Snow Queen
In this story, Kai becomes emotionally frozen: cold, detached, unreachable. This resembles the person who uses money as insulation: independence becomes a fortress. Money offers the illusion of safety: If I don’t need anyone, no one can hurt me. Relationships become distant, controlled, and emotionally “managed.”
Impulsive / thrill-seeker
Early development: There was a lack of stable comfort or structure, so pleasure became escape.
Money pattern: Reckless spending, gambling, addictive shopping, “live fast” mindset.
Fairy tale example: Hansel and Gretel
The gingerbread house is the perfect symbol of impulsive desire: sweet, immediate, intoxicating, and dangerous. Hansel and Gretel’s hunger drives them toward short-term relief, even though it hides a trap. In adulthood, this mirrors the money pattern, where spending becomes a comfort, a source of stimulation, or an escape, often followed by shame, fear, or consequences.
Low self-worth / shame-based
Early development: You experienced criticism, neglect, or being made to feel “not enough.”
Money pattern: Self-sabotage, staying in low-paying situations, accepting financial mistreatment.
Fairy tale example: The Ugly Duckling
The ugly duckling internalises rejection. He believes he is unwanted, wrong, and inferior, and adapts by hiding and expecting humiliation. This mirrors shame-based money patterns: people who believe they don’t deserve success, who avoid asking for fair pay, or who stay in undervalued roles because deep down they expect rejection.
Rescuer/saviour personality
Early development: You had to take care of others too early.
Money pattern: Constantly financially supporting others, burnout, no savings, guilt when keeping money.
Fairy tale example: The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid gives up her voice, her comfort, and her safety in order to secure love. She sacrifices herself again and again, believing love must be earned through loss. This resembles the rescuer pattern: giving money, time, and energy to others while neglecting their own needs, and feeling selfish or guilty for wanting security.
Survival mode personality
Early development: Poverty, instability, unpredictability.
Money pattern: Constant anxiety, even when earning, hoarding, distrust, always expecting disaster.
Fairy tale example: Jack and the Beanstalk
This is a story of scarcity and risk. Jack’s household is desperate: one wrong move could mean starvation. Even when the giant’s treasure appears, the danger never disappears: survival is the theme. In psychodynamic terms, this resembles the person whose nervous system remains in “threat mode,” even when their life improves. They may hoard, panic, or distrust security because, emotionally, safety has never felt real.
Entitled / “I can’t tolerate limits”
Early development: Overprotection or lack of boundaries.
Money pattern: Panic when lifestyle drops, difficulty managing stress, expects rescue.
Fairy tale example: The Princess and the Pea
The princess cannot tolerate discomfort; even something as small as a pea under a mattress becomes unbearable. This fairy tale captures entitlement in symbolic form: a fragile relationship to reality in which frustration feels catastrophic. In money terms, this resembles someone who panics when they have to downsize, struggles with limits, and expects life to maintain comfort, not because they are evil, but because they never learned emotional resilience.
How Psychodynamic Counselling Helps
Psychodynamic counselling helps people understand the emotional meaning money has taken on in their lives. It helps people stop repeating old patterns driven by fear or shame, and begin making calmer choices based on the present.
One of the most compassionate insights is this: money behaviour is often not a moral failure. It is often emotional self-protection. And through that understanding, change becomes possible, not through shame or discipline alone, but through insight, self-respect, and emotional safety.
