When money is being used as a prop to support the unstable defense, the individual becomes stressed-out about money. This person is actually required over time to be more anxious about money, and thereby to feel the stress more acutely, in order to maintain the effectiveness of the defense.
Seeing through this defense raises our intelligence. We now see our own role in producing stress. We have now identified the conflict: "I want to feel value, but I'm attached to not feeling value." We understand how money is being used as a defense, and that the defense is part of our resistance to seeing ourselves objectively. This awareness makes it possible for us, through our enhanced intelligence, to resolve the conflict and reduce the stress. Of course, there are many other ways that money, work, and other facets or life are involved in emotional conflict, and all of these ways can be revealed, published, and learned in order to help lessen our stress.
Money is also an "antidote" and defense for people who are determined unconsciously to go through life feeling deprived or refused. These two negative emotions, which produce the-glass-is-half-empty syndrome, are left over from childhood. When unresolved, these negative emotions produce greed, envy, anxiety, and stress.
Knowledge such as this can be learned by just about everyone. The APA and other mental-health organizations have to make a better effort to get beneath the symptoms and to dispense relevant knowledge--not just a bunch of statistics and percentages--about all the ways we produce stress from within.(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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