Compulsive buying disorder

Compulsive buying disorder (CBD) also known as oniomania comes from greek ὤνιος ṓnios "for sale" and μανία manía "insanity". It is obsession with shopping and buying that brings negative consequences. Compulsive buying "is experienced as an irresistible–uncontrollable urge, resulting in excessive, expensive and time-consuming retail activity [that is] typically prompted by negative affectivity" [ Kellett and Bolton (2009, p. 83)].

History:

Compulsive buying disorder was first described clinically in the early 20th century by Bleuler and Kraepelin, and they included CBD in their textbooks. Bleuler writes: "As a last category Kraepelin mentions the buying maniacs (oniomaniacs) in whom even buying is compulsive and leads to senseless contraction of debts with continuous delay of payment until a catastrophe clears the situation a little - a little bit never altogether because they never admit to their debts". Bleuler described CBD as an example of a "reactive impulse", or "impulsive insanity", which he grouped alongside kleptomania and pyromania.

CBD was not a popular throughout behaviorists of 20th century.First big research started in 1990 and were described worldwide in US, Canada, France, England, Germany and Brazil.

CBD is still not classified in DSM-IV but was added in DSM-III-R as example of "impulse control disorder not otherwise specified".


Epidemiology

According to Psychiatric Times [December 01, 2006] CBD affects 1 in 20 adults. As unexpected as it sounds according to study done by Lorrin K. (professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in Stanford University, California) showed that 6% of women and 5,5% of men have symptoms associated with CBD. Men usually tend to buy electronics, gadgets, tools, books and CD's while women buy clothes, make up, craft items or objects for home.

According to those study people with symptoms of CBD are more likely to have their credits within 500$ to 100$ of their credit limits and where 4 times likely to very often or often make minimal repayments. They are also younger and with yearly income of 50 000$ or lower.

http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band153/b153-6.html


Symptoms

Main symptoms of CBD are:

• Shopping or spending money as result of feeling disappointed, angry, or scared 
• Shopping or spending habits causing emotional distress in one's life 
• Having arguments with others about one's shopping or spending habits 
• Feeling lost without credit cards 
• Buying items on credit that would not be bought with cash 
• Feeling a rush of euphoria and anxiety when spending money 
• Feeling guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, or confused after shopping or spending money 
• Lying to others about purchases made or how much money was spent 
• Thinking excessively about money 
• Spending a lot of time juggling accounts or bills to accommodate spending 

Consequences

Consequences of compulsive buying disorder can be divided in several categories:

1. Financial- that will include overspending, bankruptcy, loans, ruined credit history, extreme debt, late bill payments.

2. Social- family conflicts, divorce, broken relationships

3. Emotional- low mood, depression, anxiety, other compulsive disorders like mood, eating and substance use disorder, lowered sense of life, suicide.

4. Legal- theft, use of illegal substances, homelessness and many more


Causes

Causes of CBD are unknown but it is believed that they start in early childhood when the child was neglected by parents and were grown up with low self esteem. They have felt unimportant and were substituting their loneliness with toys or food which later changed to shopping.

Big role in developing CBD plays social and cultural background when credit cards are easily accessible and it is easy to spend beyond the limits, it is socially acceptable to take big loans and socially required to have all newest designers clothes, gadgets etc. We are living in market based community where wide variety of goods, disposable income and significant leisure time makes us more prone to develop CBD.

Another theory says that there is increased risk for CBD in people with disturbed neuro transmission. They have noted similarities between CBD and obsessive-compulsive disorder by levels of SSRIs - serotonin inhibitors.

Prevention

There are few things that can help people with CBD with their urges:
Pay for purchases by cash, check, debit card.
Make a shopping list and only buy what is on the list.
Destroy all credit cards except one to be used for emergency only.
Avoid discount warehouses. Allocate only a certain amount of cash to be spent if you do visit one.
"Window shop" only after stores have closed. If you do "look" during the day, leave your wallet at home.
Avoid phoning in catalog orders and don't watch TV shopping channels.
If you're traveling to visit friends or relatives, have your gifts wrapped and call the project finished; people tend to make more extraneous purchases when they shop outside their own communities.
Take a walk or exercise when the urge to shop comes on.
If you feel out of control, you probably are. Seek counseling or a support group.

Treatment

Treatment for people with compulsive buying disorder is available through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and/or antidepressants.

While there are no clear results from studies done on pharmaceutical therapy- some say it works some say they don't it is believed that best results are from group CBT.

Study done by Michael Lejoyeux and Aviv Weinstain revealed that the person suffering from CBD should be first "evaluated for psychiatric co morbidity, especially depression, so that appropriate pharmacological treatment can be instituted."

Their research also showed that 10 weeks of CBT significantly decreased episodes of compulsive buying and spent less time shopping comparing to people who did not receive CBT.

Some people say that CBD should not be medicalized and that it is "moral" problem used to sell more medications. Koran responds to those people by saying "The same can be said about alcoholism and gambling. These are behaviors that meet the criteria of causing substantial distress and dysfunction."

Then he added that compulsive buying is meeting criteria for other compulsive behaviors that classify for mental disorders. He thinks that CBD should be in DSM-V under impulse control disorder. He said "It is associated with tension beforehand, pleasure or gratification during the act, and then remorse, regret, or guilt afterward because of the problems it creates,"









References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_buying_disorder

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1805733/

http://www.indiana.edu/~engs/hints/shop.html

http://www.addictionrecov.org/Addictions/?AID=34

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/compulsive-buying-disorder-affects-1-20-adults-causes-marked-distress/page/0/3