Shop 'Til You A Pop A Pill

Compulsive shopping -- an overwhelming preoccupation with purchasing unneeded items -- sounds more
like a running sitcom joke than a legitimate disorder, but the problem is real. As many as twenty million Americans may be compulsive shoppers; like gamblers, their habits damage relationships, break up families and send them into debt.

I don't consider myself a compulsive shopper. (I mean, who hasn't spent six straight hours looking at flat-weave Persian rugs on eBay every now and then?) But like many people, I'm not above a bit of retail therapy, and like many people I've learned that a deep, sudden desire to Buy More Stuff is a response -- a profoundly unfulfilling response -- to periods of stress and dissatisfaction.

Such periods are not simply moods, but the products of frustrated desires, looming concerns, struggling relationships -- in short, life. This is, of course, only my own experience, and can't be scientifically extrapolated, but I wasn't surprised to read this:

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicinesay they are puzzled by findings from their new study indicating thatan antidepressant, which previously showed promise in treating abehavioral disorder known as compulsive buying, did not result in asustained benefit for the patients who took it.

The medication is escitalopram, a commonly prescribed antidepressantsold under the brand name Lexapro. In the study, researchers found nodifference in the relapse rate of people with compulsive-buyingdisorder when they continued to take escitalopram compared with thosewho had been switched to a placebo. [...]

The lead investigator said the results were a "shock" and could perhapsbe explained by a more complex biological explanation for the disorder.
But I think the roots of compulsive shopping go far deeper than merepersonal biology.

Study Of Drug Therapy For Compulsive Buying Yields A Puzzle [press release]