Saturday focus: Shopping life
According to a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, 5.8 percent of Americans are compulsive buyers.
They buy things they don’t necessarily need or can’t afford to the point that it affects their relationships, their finances or their health, noted a report in the Washington Post.
In some cases, psychiatrists and financial planners say, a flailing economy encourages such behavior. But compulsive shopping can be especially destructive when the job market, and economy in general, are so uncertain, they said.
“For people already in the throes of addiction, the economy tanking is just another stressor,” Terry Shulman, a Detroit therapist who specializes in addictions, told the Post. “It’s no different than the alcoholic afraid of losing a job or money, but they’re still drinking.”
Easy access to credit, aggressive advertising and the availability of goods on the Internet have made compulsive buying a more visible problem in recent years, experts say.
It happens to men and women and is more common among those making less than $50,000 a year, according to the study in the journal. It is so widespread that the American Psychiatric Association has for years been discussing including compulsive buying in its manual of mental disorders, which it plans to finish updating by 2012.
CASE IN POINT: Sheriff’s detectives in Southern California were looking this week for a 34-year-old woman who they say went on a four-day shopping spree in April with her company credit card and racked up more than $150,000 in purchases.
Julie L. Jackson used the card to buy $63,000 worth of Rolex watches and items at high-end stores like Gucci and Bloomingdales before she disappeared, authorities said.
She is being sought on a $500,000 arrest warrant on suspicion of embezzlement, grand theft and auto theft, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Jackson had worked for more than four years as an events coordinator at a nonprofit corporation that promotes education and provides educational management services, a sheriff’s detective said.
From wire reports