Sometimes there's an issue where people's minds kind of shut down a bit. There's a kind of "if that were happening, surely I'd know about it; I don't know about it, therefore..." thought process.

It's helped a great deal by silent assertions (reference: http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/mtwain/bl-mtwain-myfirstlie.htm). Basically, "nothing wrong here, nothing worth talking about too much."

There was a game out there that helped - it was a game for a low income person on a strict budget, and emphasized the difficulty of getting by, and the choices that one needed to make. (If a person wasn't lucky, they could have a car breakdown and a pet get sick at the same time - what do they do? They can't afford to handle both.)