When is enough ... enough?

Despite the difficulty of facing the voids that money can't fill, clients often seem willing to try. In Martin Siesta's Paramus, N.J., practice, requests for life guidance began in the dot.com heyday of 1999 and 2000. After 9/11, they accelerated. Now the stream is fairly steady, he says, especially with people who "have been through a rocky time."

"It's those people who are willing to look at themselves and their lives and reevaluate," Mr. Siesta says.

Once a person has identified deep passions, whether for nursing or art or raising well-rounded children, an income target is estimated. Making the shift to a life of choice takes a few years in some cases, says Ms. Galvan, but cutting out distracting costs helps expedite the move. Some might meet their income target with no outside job using the "4 percent rule." That is, living on 4 percent of one's investable assets is sustainable for the long term. Others could supplement their investment return with wages or a salary.

"People get locked into very tight mind frames about what they need to be OK," Galvan says. "But if you're living the life that makes you happy, the life that's consistent with your values, then you don't worry about having piles of money because what's it going to pay for, anyway?"

For all the emphasis on doing what's fulfilling, however, planners in this movement recognize the need for an ample nest egg to prepare for unforeseen expenses.

"Can you live for 10 years in a nursing facility? That's not greed to ask that," says Richard Wagner, a Denver financial planner and former president of what is now the Financial Planning Association. "Somehow, it's the wrong question, the issue of greed.... [Instead], it's 'How are you going to deal with the resources you've been given - time, talent, and treasure?' "

Some planners say the new movement isn't addressing the core issues facing most Americans: a blasé attitude toward accumulating wealth and a preference for spending over saving.

"Complacency is a huge problem," says Bradley Huffman, an Ohio financial planner and author of "Scared Rich: Building Wealth With Confidence." In fact, fear of not having enough "can be a motivating factor for people. And if that's what it takes to get people out there, then that's fine, but they do have to have the motivation and ambition to move forward with that."

In the end, planners who advocate a more nuanced view of money aim to help clients not only build the financial resources they'll need but also flag the areas where money will do nothing to help, and personal skills become necessary.

After achieving a certain basic living standard, more money doesn't produce better relationships with spouse and children, Klainer says. In fact, she argues that using gifts and other spending as a substitute for affection or time together will probably wear away the fabric of those family bonds because such tokens of concern are ephemeral and fleeting.

"It's a lot easier to buy your teenager an iPod, which she or he is demanding, than it is to sit down and have a conversation," Klainer says.

With this shift in what it can mean to provide financial counseling, Galvan says planners are coming to embrace what many in the field have long experienced with trepidation and discomfort: clients who get nervous and highly emotional in their offices.

After all, what's on the table in these meetings is not just money but a client's complex relationship to money. So what else should a planner expect?

"They're trained in the numbers side and the analytic side, but they're not trained at all in the human side and the relational side," Galvan says. "But money is one of the most intense, private, and personal issues we deal with in life.... If you don't delve into the most profound heartfelt goals of the person before you address the financial goals, you're selling them a lemon."

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