In this Article:
Shopping Addiction
Shopping Addiction Causes
Shopping Addiction Treatment
Shopping Addiction Causes can be due to a wide range of factors, including but not limited to the following:
• Some form of emotional deprivation
• The inability to properly cope with difficult issues, such as loneliness, anger or emptiness
• A need to distract one’s self from those issues
• A means of eliminating depression
• A desire to seek danger
• A desire to gain control, as well as an inability to control one’s Impulses
• A need or desire for acceptance
Unlike drug use, shopping is a universal experience. It thus should be noted that there are negative behaviors and reactions associated with shopping that lead to feelings of distress but that do not constitute a shopping addiction, compulsion or disorder, such as buyer’s remorse.
Diagnosis
Currently, the DSM-IV does not individually recognize compulsive buying; it is not listed under its impulse-control disorders, although it may be under consideration for inclusion in the DSM-V. Thus, there is not an approved, scientifically established diagnosis for a
shopping addiction. Generally speaking the reader should leave this diagnosis—and any diagnosis—to a qualified health professional.
However, the
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has regarded behavioral disorders like shopping addiction to be reasonable disorders because they have common conditions with other compulsive behaviors that do not feature a stimulus one puts into their body (i.e. drugs,
alcohol,
tobacco). These are: A sense of arousal before going shopping, followed by pleasure or gratification while shopping, and a loss of arousal as well as experiencing feelings of remorse after shopping.
To that end, some behaviors and emotions have been associated with a potential causes of shopping addiction, such as:
• A reaction to disappointment, stress, anger or fear by shopping
• A feeling that one’s spending habits are out of control and are causing friction or conflict in one’s family, relationship
• Feeling a sense of euphoria as well as anxiety while shopping
• Experiencing a sense of getting away with something forbidden while shopping
• Feeling severe guilt or remorse about having gone shopping, especially if it contradicts promises made to one’s self or a loved one
• Buying things that are never or almost never used—in other words, buying for no reason other than to spend
• Lying about one’s extensive shopping habits to friends or family
• A preoccupation with credit cards and finances, built around how much one has spent, and how much one will have to spend, on shopping, and creative juggling of various accounts to make shopping possible
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Related Resources
Wikipedia.org: Shopping Addiction Causes
Addictions.co.uk: Shopping Addiction Causes
Indiana.edu: Shopping Addiction Causes
Terrence Shulman: The Shulman Center for Compulsive Theft & Spending
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