Video: What is "shopping addiction"?
http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/2531/1/Video-What-is-shopping-addiction/Page1.html
Marc F. Kern
Marc F. Kern, Ph.D., has over 30 years of clinical psychotherapy experience helping people overcome their self-defeating habits and acquire the insights and skills to live happier lives. He has a deep personal understanding of the addictive process and continues his lifelong research of contemporary treatments for addiction and other destructive behaviors.
Site: http://www.habitdoc.com
Site: http://www.AAalternative.com
Also see Video Interviews with Dr. Kern.
By Marc F. Kern
Published on 04/18/2008
Shopping addiction is nothing more than another manifestation of a process in which someone over engages in a particular activity to the exclusion of others to perhaps even the detriment of themselves and it manifests itself in the involvement of shopping, not too far away from gambling.
The individual doesn't anticipate a reward like a gambler does with a slot machine but the idea that you shop.
You own the prized object and there is an exhilaration, an excitement, optimism. Let's say you were blue before you went into the store or let's say you were sitting at home and watching TV and the shopping channel is on and you buy this thing and there's an excitement.
That excitement, it feels so good inside and it becomes a central dominating force where you continually look to shopping to guide your actions and guide your day-to-day world to the exclusion of other more healthy adaptive ways of coping with uncomfortable feelings or difficult life circumstances.
Shopping addiction is nothing more than another manifestation of a
process in which someone over engages in a particular activity to the
exclusion of others to perhaps even the detriment of themselves and it
manifests itself in the involvement of shopping, not too far away from
gambling.
Shopping addiction is nothing more than another manifestation of a process in which someone over engages in a particular activity to the exclusion of others to perhaps even the detriment of themselves and it manifests itself in the involvement of shopping, not too far away from gambling.
The individual doesn't anticipate a reward like a gambler does with a slot machine but the idea that you shop.
You own the prized object and there is an exhilaration, an excitement, optimism. Let's say you were blue before you went into the store or let's say you were sitting at home and watching TV and the shopping channel is on and you buy this thing and there's an excitement.
That excitement, it feels so good inside and it becomes a central dominating force where you continually look to shopping to guide your actions and guide your day-to-day world to the exclusion of other more healthy adaptive ways of coping with uncomfortable feelings or difficult life circumstances.