Shopping addiction is a behavioral disorder which falls into impulse control disorders. It is characterized by an uncontrollable urge to buy things of different nature; this behavior is usually implemented as an attempt to block negative feelings.
Shopping addiction is diagnosed quite late in life, only when the disorder has already caused many financial problems and has had negative consequences in the individual’s private and work life.
Because of globalization and the rise in consumption it’s difficult to draw a line between normal buying behavior and a pathological one, this is the reason way it’s very difficult to make an early diagnosis.
An important sign which can tell us that we are dealing with a pathological behavior is the lack of control which precedes the shopping, as if the individual has an immediate urge to satisfy in spite of his/her attempts to stop themselves.
Shopping becomes then a dysfunctional coping mechanism with which the individual tries to face negative feelings such as: anxiety, sadness, anger and loneliness. These feelings cause a rising tension within the individual, who only manages to calm it down (even though only in the short term) with compulsive shopping behavior.
SYMPTOMS
Some symptoms may be:
- The urge to buy is reported to be uncontrollable by the individual;
- The buyer does not actually need the things he/she is buying, which makes these objects useless;
- The expenditure is usually far over the financial resources available to the buyer;
- The urge to buy and the following shopping cause severe impairments in the individual’s private, work and financial life.
Some of the characteristics that compulsive shopping and other addictions have in common are: habituation, the always increasing time spent shopping, the inability to control the urge (craving) and the inability to tolerate withdrawal from the pathological behavior.
Shopping triggers an immediate gratification which becomes a positive reinforcement, which causes the individual to repeat the pathological behavior.
Therefore, compulsive shopping can be defined as an impulse-control disorder, an obsessive-compulsive disorder and an addiction.
At a symptomatologic level we can observe primary manifestations (which are directly linked to the pathological behavior) and secondary manifestations (which are linked to a previously existent psychological state):
- Anxiety, agitation, stress;
- Depression;
- Maniacal or hypomanic states;
- Feelings of sadness or emptiness;
- Feelings of guilt;
- Loneliness;
- Impaired family relations;
- Damaged financial status.
TREATMENT
The therapies used for compulsive shopping are similar to the ones used for other addictions, or for impulse-control dysfunctions and obsessive states.
The most successful kind of therapy seems to be cognitive behavioral therapy, which focuses on:
- Unraveling all the automatic thoughts that start the dysfunctional behaviors;
- Impulse control training;
- Coping mechanisms to be used when feeling guilty, ashamed, powerless or anxious;
- Social skills training;
- Increasing self-esteem;
- Recovery of all interpersonal relations which have been damaged by the disorder.
