SHOPPING LIFE

Times have never been tougher for people diagnosed with a controversial disorder called “compulsive buying,” or “shopaholism.”

The day after Thanksgiving, 31-year-old confessed shopaholic Nikki Ebben was holed up in her bedroom in Appleton, Wis., while her husband went to Wal-Mart to snag a $500 flat-screen TV.

Ebben, who has maxed out 15 credit cards and racked up more than $80,000 in debt, says she vowed to stay away from stores. Still, she couldn’t resist the temptation of e-commerce, particularly the appeal of 30 percent off and free shipping.

While her husband was gone, Ebben spent $400 at Toysrus.com and Target.com, using money from the couple’s joint bank account.

“I went crazy,” admits Ebben.This year, the combination of retailers’ aggressive discounting and current economic anxiety “is a disaster” for people who feel a compulsion to shop, says Terrence Shulman, a social worker and founder of the Shulman Center for Compulsive Theft and Spending, in Franklin, Mich.

The bombardment of promotional e-mails and discount coupons from retailers this season is “like giving matches to a pyromaniac,” says April Benson, a New York psychotherapist who specializes in the disorder.

Benson urges her clients to unsubscribe from retailers’ e-mail lists, block television channels like QVC and avoid “danger zones,” such as Wal-Mart on Black Friday. The silver lining of the current economic crisis, she says, is that many compulsive shoppers are seeing their credit lines cut off, and that is forcing them to reckon with their illness.

The problem: They often have no money left to pay for therapy, which frequently isn’t covered by insurance.

Compulsive buying was first identified in 1915 by a German doctor who called it “oniomania” for the Greek term “onios,” which means “for sale.”

It isn’t listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s catalog of officially recognized psychiatric disorders. But, because of a growing body of evidence that compulsive buying is itself a disorder – not just a symptom of something else – it is under consideration for inclusion in the next edition, to be released in 2011.

Wall Street Journal