Psychology of Financial Planning: The Practitioner's Guide to Money and Behavior

Psychology of Financial Planning: The Practitioner’s Guide to Money and Behavior

In PSYCHOLOGY OF FINANCIAL PLANNING: The Practitioner’s Guide to Money and Behavior, distinguished authors Drs. Brad Klontz, CFP®, Charles Chaffin, and Ted Klontz deliver a comprehensive overview of the psychological factors that impact the financial planning client.

Designed for both professional and academic audiences, PSYCHOLOGY OF FINANCIAL PLANNING is written for those with 30 years in practice as well as those just beginning their journey.

With a focus on how psychology can be applied to real-world financial planning scenarios, PSYCHOLOGY OF FINANCIAL PLANNING provides a much-needed toolbox for practicing financial planners who know that understanding their client’s psychology is critical to their ability to be effective.

The PSYCHOLOGY OF FINANCIAL PLANNING is also a much-needed resource for academic institutions who now need to educate their students in the CFP Board’s newest category of learning objectives: psychology of financial planning.

Topics include:

• Why we are bad with money
• Client and planner attitudes, values, & biases
• Financial flashpoints, money scripts, and financial behaviors
• Behavioral finance
• Sources of money conflict
• Principles of counseling
• Multicultural competence in financial planning
• General principles of effective communication
• Helping clients navigate crisis events
• Assessment in financial planning
• Ethical considerations in the psychology of financial planning
• Getting clients to take action
• Integrating financial psychology into the financial planning process

PSYCHOLOGY OF FINANCIAL PLANNING goes beyond just theory to show how practitioners can use psychology to better serve their clients. The accompanying workbook provides exercises, scripts, and workshop activities for firms and practitioners who are dedicated to engaging and implementing the content in meaningful ways.

DR. BRAD KLONTZ is an expert in financial psychology, financial planning, and applied behavioral finance. He is a clinical psychologist, a Professor at Creighton University Heider College of Business, and a Certified Financial Planner^® practitioner. He is an award-winning academic and researcher but also a practicing financial planner and owner of Your Mental Wealth Advisors, a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firm, where he works directly with clients in a financial planning capacity. His unique background and perspective have helped make him a leading expert in financial psychology creating educational content that goes beyond just theory and can be directly applied into a real-world financial planning context.

DR. CHARLES CHAFFIN’s work encompasses a broad range of fields, from educational and cognitive psychology to financial planning. He has served as the author or lead editor of 6 different books within financial planning and cognitive psychology, helping practitioners become more client-centered and helping individuals and companies address the pushes and pulls on attention in the workplace. He has taught at the undergraduate and graduate level, as well as in a variety of executive education programs. For over a decade, Dr. Chaffin served as Director of Academic Initiatives with CFP Board in Washington, DC, working with a variety of financial planning programs and led research initiatives that directly or indirectly related to financial planning practice. He consults with financial service firms and is a regular keynote speaker at a variety of conferences.

PAUL T (TED) KLONTZ, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Practice of Financial Psychology and Behavioral Finance at Creighton University’s Heider College of Business, Founder and CEO of Klontz Consulting Group and Co-Founder and Director of the Financial Psychology Institute^®, is based in Nashville, TN. He has a 40+ year career in counseling, consulting and advising that has included authoring, co-authoring and/or contributing to six financial psychology related books: Money Mammoth: Unlocking the Secrets of Financial Psychology to Break from the Herd and Avoid Extinction:,Mind over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders that Threaten Our Financial Health, Wired for Wealth, Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge, Facilitating Financial Health, Financial Therapy: Theory, Research and Practice.