Overcoming Compulsive Shopping – Workshops

What even is Compulsive Shopping?

There is a lot of academic debate about the term “Shopping Addict“, “Shopaholic“, “Compulsive Shopper“, etc.

Modern psychiatry is trying to avoid labelling all behaviour as “a condition”, partly becuase there is often no clear boundary for a problem behaviour, but also, this approach helps people “own” their own life choices.

Whilst it can often be mistaken or, or overlap with, OCD and/or “hoarding” behaviour, it is actually its own distinct thing – and the good news is that it’s much easier to overcome than OCD or “hoarding”.

General surveys show 8%-16% of the population have “a shopping problem”, but this is only 2%-5% in clinical studies It is more common in younger people In terms of self-reporting, 90% of these people are female However, men & women are equally represented for online “compulsive shoppers”. In a study avoiding only self-identified “problem shoppers”, 5.8% of men and 6% of women experience the feelings of a “Compulsive Shopper”.

A 2015 study came up with the “Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale“.

On a scale of 1-5, how much do you agree with the following:

  • I think about shopping/buying things all the time
  • I shop/buy things in order to change my mood
  • I shop/buy so much that it negatively affects my daily obligations (e.g. school or work)
  • I feel I have to shop/buy more and more to obtain the same satisfaction as before
  • I have decided to shop/buy less, but have not been able to do so
  • I feel bad if I for some reason are prevented from shopping/buying things
  • I shop/buy so much that it has impaired my well-being

On one hand, “It’s only a problem if it’s a problem”!

However, would you like you life to be better in this area?

I run these as group workshops, generally online but sometimes in person, and I prefer to run it as a pair of events one week apart, to allow the participants to take what they have learnt from the first event, apply it, and then come back to the second event with personal insights for us all to learn from.

  • Please contact me if you want to know when the next online event will be running.
  • Please also contact me if you would like me to run a local workshop, either as a pair of events, or as a single event with a breakout session in the middle.

I often have online workshops here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/michael-psychotherapy-71059356793