Serious Shopping
Ed Adrienne Baker
Free Association Books,
£15.95, pp 220
ISBN 1 85343 483 3
Rating: 2/4
According to this book, shoppers can
join the long list of addicts - gymaholics, dot.comaholics, sexaholicsinitially identified by a section of the media
apparently addicted to identifying addictions.
The case for shopping addiction rather
crumbles when the evidence is examined.
The definitions of addiction used by the
various authors are rarely explicitly defined
but seem to be so broad as to stretch from
"dysphoric repetitive shopping" at one end
to the DSMIV style "dependent shopper" at
the other. The research base for a putative
new disorder should be robust. The evidence presented here is based largely on
results from questionnaires of unclear validity and reliability with low response rates
from self selected samples. There is one
piece of good qualitative research and
ample case studies, but, though insightful,
they aren't exactly sound epidemiology.
It is disappointing to read the claim in
this book that shopping addiction can only be
treated "within an approach in which the
therapeutic relationship is a pivotal part of
the process." The claim is untested, much evidence suggests it is wrong, and it is unlikely to
encourage incorporation of psychotherapeutic approaches into the treatment of addiction in the public sector.
The psychotherapeutic tradition can,
however, claim to be pivotal in its contribution to understanding the inner reality of the
patient. Shopping is described variously as a
futile struggle to fill a "cavernous emptiness"
stemming from an early inadequate relationship with parents, as a tool for
punishment or revenge in the complex
interplay of human relationships, or as a
strategy to deny our "primordial anxiety" of
the reality of death ("I shop, therefore I am").
Given the richness of these theories, it is
perhaps unsurprising that an operational
definition of shopping addiction is
eschewed. While this approach certainly
gives an impression of the phenomenolog
cal range of the "psychopathology," it
doesn't give the reader a feel for its
magnitude or public health importance.
Philip Shaw, clinical researcher, Institute of Psychiatry, London
studentBMJ 2001;09:217-260 July ISSN 0966-6494
