In a culture focused on obtaining objects and money, it is tricky to differentiate whether someone may be a “compulsive shopper”. The rationalizations are so easy to use to excuse out of control behavior. However, the detrimental effects of compulsive shopping can be great; family discord, financial debt and emotional instability. Some important questions to ask yourself if you think you may use shopping as a means to cope with the daunting problems of life are:

A=Almost Always O=Once in Awhile I=Infrequently N=Not at all

1. Do you buy things you want even if you know at that moment you do not have the money to pay for it?
2. Is it difficult for you to save money?
3. When you have some “extra” cash that you could save, instead, you think of other things you would like to buy?
4. Do you cheer yourself up or give yourself a reward by “going shopping”?
5. Does more than a third of your income go to pay credit card bills (not including rent or mortgage payments)?
6. Have you had to move credit lines because you typically don’t have the money to pay off your credit line?
7. Do you pay the minimum balance on your credit card most of the time?
8. Are you inclined to keep buying more of your favorite things- clothes, makeup, cd’s, books, computer software, electronic gadgets – even if though you do not have a specific need for them?
9. When and if you have to say “NO” to yourself, or control yourself from buying something you really want, do you feel intensely deprived, angry or upset?

If you have four or more A’s and O’s you have overspending tendencies. If you answered A or O to the last question, you are most likely someone who may grapple with compulsive shopping. That question seems to be the most potent indicator of a serious problem.

Shopping is a way of indulging oneself on the surface level, or image level, and depriving oneself on a deeper level, where the hunger truly resides, and will never be fulfilled with things and stuff. But, most people do not know how to feed these hunger pains and don’t want to feel them. The process of therapy will provide a safe place to understand these hunger drives and how to deal with them substantially rather than destructively.