THAT'S MEN:A newly diagnosed disorder should prompt us to realise that money isn't everything
DO YOU worry about money? If so, you might need to see a money therapist.
I am not kidding. This is the latest thing in the United States, where therapists have dreamt up a thing called "money disorder".
If your relationship with money is dysfunctional, you can go to a money disorder therapist - as long as you have enough money to pay the therapist. In some cases, according to a recent New York Timesarticle on the topic, the money therapist, who is a trained counsellor, teams up with an accountant and you see both in the same session.
One financial planner said he had "never seen clients making progress faster" than when they saw him and the money therapist in the same session.
I'd make fast progress too, if the alternative was months and months of paying out large hourly sums to an Eddie Hobbs/Dr Phil double act.
The surprising thing about this new line in therapy is that it took the profession so long to come up with it. The revered and - literally - heavy Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists caffeine withdrawal as a mental disorder, so devising "money disorder" is nothing to these guys.
But behind all this sneering at a new wheeze devised by the American branch of my profession there are a few serious points to be made.
The first is that money does, indeed, have all sorts of psychological meanings that can trip us up.
The recent Irish Times poll on men showed that career and finances are of very high importance to us. This, I think, is due to our traditional role as breadwinners.
Even in an allegedly equal society, it's the women who stay at home with the kids, especially after the second child has come along. Apart from anything else, juggling a career and the needs of two kids is truly daunting if you don't have the moolah to pay for a live-in Mary Poppins.
Needless to say, the role of breadwinner brings with it a huge concern about money - especially in the times in which we are now living.
So the loss of a job, for instance, can bring an additional psychological stress to a man - and this applies even if his partner is still working full-time and can support the family.
This is why I think it's so important for us to be aware of the myriad other ways in which we are important to our families, ways which have nothing to do with money.
Certainly, our children want our attention, presence and involvement regardless of our earning capacity.
And I will intrude a wish here that the present financial tsunami might bring an end to the cynical marketing of expensive branded goods to children.
Wasting my time I know, but what a difference it would make to parents and, yes, to children.
Many children grow up in families in which money is very, very scarce and yet can say in later life that they never really knew they were poor. That's quite a tribute to their parents.
But it's also a tribute to the fact that, in terms of a child's quality of life, money isn't everything.
At the other end of the scale, we can feel guilty for having money. If your father never had money, for instance, you may feel guilty for having more than he ever had.
Or you may have a sense of yourself as someone who is simply different from people who have money.
So then you get a little bit of money and you pay a cleaner to come in once a week - and you find yourself cleaning up out of embarrassment before she arrives. Even the thought of sitting down with a cup of coffee to do the Simplex crossword while she's hoovering and polishing brings on a fit of guilt.
Of course, there are people who behave like pigs when they get a bit of money and treat other people like dirt. And there are the men who make a lifetime career out of leeching on women.
For these I have no regard. I wish them an eternity locked in a room with a money therapist.
• Padraig OMorain is a counsellor