Like a fortuneteller, Judith Stern Peck spreads several cards in front of her. But instead of Tarot symbols, these cards bear inscriptions such as “Philanthropic Values,” “Work Values,” and “Educational Values.” Ms. Peck, a therapist and force behind New York’s Ackerman Institute for the Family’s project on families and money, uses the cards to help her clients clarify what money means to them.

The Ackerman Institute, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1960 and housed in a brownstone on the Upper East Side, has been a pioneer in the field of family therapy – the treatment of the family as a system as opposed to treatment of the individual psyche. Today, the institute trains family therapists and runs a clinic for family treatment. The faculty also conducts research projects on the impact of alcoholism, drug abuse, medical illness, immigration, and the demands of work and technology on the family, as well as the research directed by Ms. Peck, which looks at the role of money in family life.

Ms. Peck, a former board chairwoman of the UJA-Federation of New York, trained as a social worker first and then as a family therapist at Ackerman in the late 1970s. The other eight members of the project on families and money include the executive director of the institute, Dr. Peter Ste inglass, who is also a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Cornell University Medical College; the director of training, Marcia Sheinberg, and several family business consultants and family therapists, including myself.

Most families don’t like to talk about money. That’s not to say they don’t fight about it – on the contrary. But when spouses begin to articulate their values, and then look at how those values are reflected in their financial decisions, less fraught, more fruitful dialogues can begin. This is the theory Ms. Peck and her colleagues have devised after spending the last couple of years looking at why money is the root of so many family conflicts.

“We use values as a map to guide our decisions – including those about what to do with our money. But we are not always conscious of those values. By gaining consciousness, we make better decisions,” Ms. Peck said. Ms. Peck and her colleagues at Ackerman use cards to help clients extract and rank the values most important to them. The idea is to encourage clients to incorporate values along with tax planning and risk tolerance when budgeting the family dollar.

Most couples don’t really look at why they make spending decisions before they sign the check – even major ones. One couple, for instance, decided to renovate their house. As is often the case, the bills started coming in much higher than the estimate. The wife suggested that the family cut back on spending – the tango lessons had to go. But the husband was furious. He valued the tango as recreation much more than he valued an extra bathroom. The wife saw the house as an investment, and the extra bathroom as comfort. This couple would have done well to discuss what each felt was indispensable before they let the contractor in the door.

Had this couple consulted Ms. Peck before making the decision to spend a large part of their savings on a renovation, she might have run a family therapy session to assess what value each of them placed on recreation, savings, and financial security, and encouraged each to respect the different values of the other in an effort to forge a financial partnership.

Ms. Peck and her colleagues provide such consultations for a fee that varies according to the type of consultation and the financial circumstances of the family. In addition they work with family-owned businesses and family foundations to create harmony among different shareholders. Much of the work in these various spheres is the same – communicating attitudes about money between partners in a couple or across generations.

Money can be a problem in families whether there is a lot or a little. Over the last few years, despite the dot-com bubble and the telecom bust, many aging baby boomers have become worried that their children may suffer from the newly named social disease of “affluenza.” This condition is the mutant byproduct of the explosion of wealth following World War II. Over the past 50 years, the real annual growth of wealth has been about 3.5%. If wealth now grows 3% over the next 50 years, some $80 trillion will go to the next generation, charity, and the government.

As the people who created that wealth retire and think about passing on their money, many worry that too much money too soon could undercut the motivation of their adult children. The uncertainty about how best to make this transfer – and how to teach children to handle the money – is one of the questions that prompted Ms. Peck and her colleagues at Ackerman to look at money and what it means within families.

Transfers of wealth can drive a family apart, as anyone who’s read “King Lear” knows. But questions of inheritance aren’t the only stressors on family harmony. “The real problems come when there is a discrepancy, or contradiction between the values espoused by family members and the behavior within family life,” Ms. Peck said.

Succession planning in a family business, estate planning, marriage, divorce, or the birth of a child force people to actively consider what they plan to do with their money. The next step is to communicate any decision clearly to a spouse or children and, when possible, ask for their input.

“One couple came into my office saying they wanted a better relationship with their children. They had their own business, but had never talked to the kids about what they planned to do with it. I pointed out to them that by not talking with the kids they were communicating that they did not value their opinion. The couple was shocked. They didn’t want to burden the kids. They had never thought that talking with their kids about the business might bring them closer together,” Ms. Peck said.

Of course, values may change over time. “What we value depends on where we are in the life cycle,” Ms. Peck said. As we age, community involvement or philanthropic values motivated by a concern for legacy may edge out prior concerns with economic values such as maximizing savings or income.

There are no set solutions for handling money in families. There is no correct allowance for an 11-year-old, just as it is not always a given that an estate should be equally divided among surviving family members. Ms. Peck recommends that couples and families talk about money frankly when making decisions by holding family meetings, articulating and rating their values, trying to bring thought in line with action, and when necessary, agreeing to disagree.

If only King Lear had stopped to think about the value of honesty, and combined that thought with action in his own estate planning, he might have settled into a comfortable retirement as a doting father and grandfather.

For more information on the Ackerman Institute for the Family, call 212-879-4900 or visit www.ackerman.org.

Ms. Bailey is a social worker and former financial journalist. She works with the project on money and families at the Ackerman Institute for the Family and has a private practice in Manhattan.