New Shoes Make You Feel Better?

By Jennifer Bechdel
October 4, 2006

It’s almost that time of year again, everyone is starting to think about Christmas shopping. Traditionally the Christmas shopping season is kicked off the day after Thanksgiving, however a columnist at the New York Times already has shopping on the brain. An article in the October 3, 2006 edition by Nicholas Bakalar titled “Can’t Keep from Shopping? Help Could Be on the Way”, examines compulsive shopping behaviors and their associations with depression and anxiety, through discussion of a recent study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Compulsive shopping behavior is described by the authors of the study, “Estimated Prevalence of Compulsive Buying Behavior in the United States” published in the October 2006 issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, as “uncontrolled urges to buy, with resulting significant adverse consequences” and afflicts up to a reported 16% of adults in the US. The adverse consequences to which the authors are referring to take many forms including; bankruptcy, divorce, loss of employment and suicide attempts.

The New York Times article suggests that in the most extreme forms, compulsive shopping may be considered a psychological illness. When will the compulsive shopping diagnosis make it into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? If you are looking for an excuse to buy more shoes ladies, don’t hold your breath. Researchers fear that dubbing compulsive shopping as a mental disorder too soon will be met with much criticism including accusations that the disorder was invented to sell more drugs.