Counseling For Shopping Addiction

Counseling looks at the specific problem of shopping addiction and creates an action plan to stop the behavior. Targeted counseling for this problem alters the negative actions of the behavior and concurrently works toward healing the underlying emotions, although less emphasis is placed on exploring the emotional significance of the compulsive act than in traditional individual psychotherapy. Counselors who work with shopaholics often refer their clients to traditional psychotherapists when the severity of the related emotional issues goes beyond the expertise of the counselor. With certain clients, the combination of counseling, psychotherapy, and/or Debtors Anonymous goes several steps beyond the work of any one of these methods alone.

Karen McCall of California and Ron Gallen of New York are two counselors with significant expertise in this area: both of have written about it and both train counselors and therapists to do this type of work. McCall has published the Money Minder: Financial Recovery Workbook (2002), an approach for clients to achieve financial success; Gallen elucidates his method in The Money Trap: A Practical Program to Stop Self-Defeating Financial Habits So You Can Reclaim Your Grip on Life (2002). The major premise of counseling for shopaholics is the idea that insight alone will not stop the behavior. All stages in the shopping addiction cycle must be identified—the triggers, the feelings, the dysfunctional thoughts, the behavior, the consequences of the behavior, and the meaning of the shopping addiction. The client needs to learn how to work with each stage in the cycle so that he or she gains more control of the problem. In this sense, counseling for shopaholics is similar to counseling for alcohol and drug abuse. However, recovery from a shopping addiction is different and, in some ways more complicated: with alcohol and drugs, abstinence is the treatment goal, but it is impossible to abstain from buying, from using money.

Counseling for shopaholics sets out to address the entire scope of the problem. It helps the client answer such questions as these:

How and when did the shopping addiction begin?
What form does it take? Is it shopping on the Internet, from catalogues, on TV, in stores? Is it done on holidays? When buying gifts? In the service of a “collection”?
What emotions underlie the shopping addiction? (Boredom? Loneliness? Anger? Anxiety?)
Is it a means to self-soothe?
Is it done to try to enhance self-esteem or feel more socially desirable?
Do you shop to enliven yourself because of an internal feeling of deadness?
Is it a response to a change in another addictive behavior?

The possibilities are endless, because each person’s story is different. The central question, however—and the one that shopping addiction counselors are in a unique position to address—is always the same: what can be done to end the shopping addiction? The counseling process has as its goal to break the cycle of the shopping addiction and to create a workable financial structure, one that will enhance, rather than erode, a client’s quality of life. In order to do this, some of the underlying emotional turmoil must be dealt with, from both historical and current perspectives. There are multiple stages in recovery from shopping addiction, and counseling also has to proceed in a step-wise fashion. Admitting where you stand is the key to recovery. Before any change can occur, the shopaholic must take a long, hard look at his current situation; as with any addiction, denial is almost endemic. What I’ve found useful is to ask my clients to record all of their expenses for a one-month period, whether a fifty-cent tip on a cab ride or a $500 insurance premium. This provides us with some baseline spending data. Once shopaholics have a sense of where their money is going, the next step is to create a spending plan.

An important part of creating and using a spending plan is the distinction between needs and wants. Both are personally determined, but the two occupy different ends of the budgeting continuum. A multi-million dollar mansion and a modest bungalow both fulfill the requirement for shelter. Yet a shopaholic may consider the impressiveness of her home before considering financial reality, while most others would reverse these priorities. “Finances before features” must be the mantra of fiscal responsibility; as long as that’s maintained, there’s no shame in owning a lavish home.

Debt and savings are both needs and cannot be neglected in a spending plan. Your clients may be tempted to pay off as much debt as possible, at the cost of other needs, or perhaps to ignore savings altogether. This is not a balanced solution. To make sure that debt and savings are accounted for, both should be included in the spending plan; a balanced approach to financial recovery is the basis of shopping addiction counseling. Individuals may become frustrated that their debt will not be paid off immediately, but debt repayment is only one aspect of a new financial framework and a more balanced life. While there is an abundance—even an overabundance—of programs for credit counseling, debt consolidation, and repayment, these will not really help a shopaholic. Quick fix debt resolution may get your client out of an individual jam, but it doesn’t address the whole person, the issues and patterns that got them indebted. Only a holistic approach can reduce the likelihood of recurrence.

As the shopping addiction cycle is being broken, the emotions underlying it must be addressed. The underlying pain may result from a variety of conflicting emotions—loss, for example, or anger, jealousy, insecurity. Developmental issues in the family are often relevant. Everyone, after all, is influenced by the way his family handled money. Was it used to assert power? Was it taboo as a subject? Was it used to punish? Exploring the emotional side of the issue can be done within shopping addiction counseling or in traditional therapy. However it is accomplished, the integration of the emotional and behavioral sides is the comprehensive solution needed for lasting recovery.

Shopping addiction counseling is perhaps the most comprehensive approach to treatment, teaming specific behavior-changing techniques with careful attention to the precipitating emotions. It works best in combination with individual psychotherapy or couples or group therapy, as well as participation in Debtors Anonymous. Although not in large numbers, there are now practitioners throughout the country doing this type of work.