Ronit Lami is a professional therapist and self-styled "wealth consultant". She helps rich people who are unhappy with their excessive wealth. Their condition is known as "affluenza" - and there are plenty of sufferers out there, as Dr Lami's client list shows.
The fabulously wealthy won't feel alienated by her elegant office in Mayfair, one leap away from affluent Berkeley Square. Among the antique furniture and gilt fittings, Dr Lami - a petite, soft-voiced woman - defines affluenza as "an unbalanced relationship with money/wealth, or the pursuit of it". Unfortunate victims can suffer from lack of self-confidence, loss of future motivation, difficulty in establishing relationships, boredom, loneliness, shame and guilt.
At anything from £175 to £400 per hour, the therapy is not cheap. But, then, most of Dr Lami's clients aren't worried about the cost. In fact, dispensing with some of their money might be positively a relief.
"My clients haven't done personal development work on themselves," she tells me, "so this materialism is controlling them rather than the other way around."
Dr Lami dates the rise of affluenza to the "quantum leap in technology" after the Second World War which allowed so many the opportunity to make a fortune. Materialism really got going during and after the 1980s with the rise of dotcoms and the Lottery. "There was a lot of buzz around becoming rich instantly," she says.
Dr Lami believes that everyone suffers from affluenza, usually in a mild form: "If you focus on 'what do I have?' externally - the car I'm driving, the house I'm living in, the neighbourhood, school, even the whole stigma with universities - it's part of affluenza, it's hidden."
The wealth therapist blames advertisers and television companies for fuelling our desire for ever more belongings. She also suspects that our increasing secularism has a role in our dissatisfaction: we are trying to fill our spiritual vacuum with material possessions.
Dr Lami stresses that she is not treating people with mental disorders, merely people "with challenges in their lives". She does not ask her clients to lie down on a couch or take a little yellow pill but merely advises them to find a balance: "finding your yin and yang", as she calls it.
So when you walk by a splendid pile, have some pity for the millionaire rattling around within. If he hasn't found the balance, or the yin and yang, he's probably suffering an attack of affluenza.
