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Debts, the loss of a job, the closure of a business - all can feel as traumatic as a bereavement, according to counsellors who see the human cost of the economic crisis. But hard times can also be an opportunity for positive change and creative reinvention, writes Robbyn Swan

I RECENTLY SOUGHT to bring a flicker of a smile to the face of a friend whose heady days as a Master of the Universe ended in the economic catastrophe of the past months. Knowing that he was counting losses in the millions, my small offering was to send him a copy of a letter to Robert and Ethel Kennedy that hangs above my desk, a document I came across in the private papers of the family's accountant.