The Golden Ghetto: The Psychology of Affluence

In The Golden Ghetto, Jessie H. O’Neill, granddaughter of Charles Erwin Wilson, one-time president of General Motors, provides a penetrating look at why attaining wealth proves to be a hollow achievement for many. A psychotherapist, O’Neill has based her professional practice on understanding and treating the problems of those who have amassed great wealth, and her book is both a description of their lives and an analysis of and prescription for the problems they’ve had to face. While O’Neill’s main focus is on the very rich, the lessons to be learned from their lives have a far broader application. The Golden Ghetto is in fact inhabited by millions of Americans, rich and poor alike, who embrace and endlessly pursue the fantasy that more is better, while allowing all that is truly worthwhile – loving relationships, the selfless giving of oneself, and spiritual growth – to fall by the wayside. The The Golden Ghetto shows us how to right our own relationship with money, and offers insightful suggestions for repairing the psychological and cultural damage our misguided beliefs about money, power, and happiness have caused.