Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
Oniomania Login/Join
 
Member
Picture of shufitz
posted
A word new to me, appropriate for the Christmas season. Today's paper (excerpted) reports:
    The holiday season is notoriously stressful for people with drinking problems and overeating issues. But times have never been tougher for those diagnosed with a controversial disorder called "compulsive buying," or "shopaholism."

    Compulsive buying was first identified in 1915 by a German doctor who called it "oniomania" for the Greek term "onios," which means "for sale." It isn't listed in the American Psychiatric Association's catalog of officially recognized psychiatric disorders. But, because of a growing body of evidence that compulsive buying is itself a disorder -- not just a symptom of something else -- it is under consideration for inclusion in the next edition, to be released in 2011.

    A group of Stanford University researchers caused a stir in 2006 when they reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry that about 5.8% of the U.S. population can be said to have "compulsive buying behavior," characterized by an abnormal preoccupation with shopping, purchasing of unnecessary items and adverse consequences, like "impaired social or occupational functioning, and/or financial problems."
 
Posts: 2666 | Location: Chicago, IL USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
<Asa Lovejoy>
posted
Shouldn't that decimal point be one place to the right?
 
Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of arnie
posted Hide Post
I've often come across "shopaholic". A related phrase is "retail therapy".


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
Posts: 10940 | Location: LondonReply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata  
 


Copyright © 2002-12