Every financial planner has had this experience. A client couple comes to you in some financial distress. And they came to the right place: This is what you do, and you're good at it (if you don't say so yourself).

After establishing rapport, you gather data, analyze it, establish goals, develop solutions and deliver a stellar comprehensive financial plan. As you review the plan and your recommendations, your clients nod their heads frequently, ask questions, smile, thank you vigorously for your wisdom and insight, shake your hand and walk out the door.

Three months later you follow up with a phone call, only to discover that they have not made progress on any of the recommendations. They assure you that the plan is solid and important, but they just haven't gotten to it.

UNCONSCIOUS BELIEFS

Stalling-and other seemingly illogical client behavior-makes total sense when we have insight into what I call "money scripts." They are those typically unconscious, but deeply held beliefs we have about money that drive all of our financial behavior. It is likely that a significant part of the financial distress that brought your client through your door is the result of the same beliefs that are keeping him or her from following your plan.

Money scripts are developed in childhood. The child-mind is a simple one, and a child's need to figure out how the world works is great. Children have a tendency to see things in all-or-nothing terms, especially when the learning experience is emotionally charged or painful. After you have been bitten by a snake, it makes sense to run the next time you see something stirring in the grass, although this time you could be running from a squirrel.

Since most families don't talk much about money, teaching more by example than words, parents may not notice misunderstandings or key experiences. The euphoria that comes with watching a parent win at the horse track may end up in a lifelong gambling problem; growing up in poverty can set up a workaholic personality; or hearing family discussions about betrayal can lead you to keep financial secrets from a trustworthy partner. The human brain automatically takes on the job of protecting us from experiencing more pain or works to re-create remembered pleasures.

Rarely do we take the time and energy to think about our thinking, digging into our histories to discover the origins of our assumptions about money, or anything else for that matter. Our cultural taboo against talking about money also allows the scripts to run unchallenged. Psychologically minded financial planners are in an excellent position to help clients become conscious of their assumptions about money, the first step to changing them.

You don't need to tell clients they are wrong. Even the most outrageous money scripts are 100% true in a specific set of circumstances.

My grandfather's family lost all their money when the banks collapsed during the Great Depression. As a young man, my grandfather concluded that he wouldn't make the same mistake, and for the rest of his 94-year life, he refused to put a dime in a bank and kept his money in a lockbox in his attic. It didn't matter that laws had passed insuring bank deposits. Instead of telling clients they are wrong, you can help them see that their beliefs are based on real experiences and it's the facts that have changed.

Chances are your client is going along with or reacting against family history. My grandfather passed down his financial mistrust to my mother. As a result, she was very conservative with her money, preferring CDs and savings accounts and avoiding the stock market.

Until I investigated my own family financial history, I had no idea why I was anxious about money, especially about being poor. In an effort to do things differently, I swung in the opposite direction of their caution and ended up losing half of my money when the tech bubble burst.

At that point, it would have been easy for me to revert to my grandfather's all-encompassing mistrust of financial institutions and repeat the family cycle. Instead, I began questioning my assumptions, exploring the emotional intensity of my fear of ending up poor. I interviewed family members and sought advice and counsel from others. Knowing their family history will give your clients insight and allow them to change their behavior.

THREE MONEY SCRIPTS

We recently concluded a web-based survey of more than 400 people from all walks of life, investigating their beliefs about money and whether these beliefs were associated with financial health. The study is set to be published in the spring 2011 edition of the Journal of Financial Therapy.