I watched Dispatches last night on Channel 4 about the level of debt in this country and what I really took away from the program wasn’t that people earn too little but there are many out there who can’t stop buying stuff. With the advent of internet shopping, and particularly people responding to emails sent by companies, we are much more likely to make an impulse buy. The “bings”, “whistles”, “bongs” of our mobile phones have acted like the bells that Pavlov rang to get his dogs to salivate, because they believed they were about to be fed.
Classical conditioning as it’s now known refers to a learning procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus – in the case of shopping, the boost of dopamine we experience when we get something new – is paired with a previously neutral stimulus, our mobile text message alert, or our computer letting us know when a new email has landed in our in box.
Over the last 3 years I have found this becoming a problem more and more, mostly with children and teenagers who have been unable to focus for long periods of time to revise because they feel they have to see who and what has been sent. This means their exam results are becoming lower than expected, damaging their chances to go on to train in the fields they want to work.
With shopaholics, they end up not just racking up a huge amount of debt but then have to find space to store their hoard. On dispatches the chap in question needed a new mattress but ended up buying a whole new bedroom. If you’re a compulsive spender, £250 for a new mattress could turn into £2500. In the end, the chap they were following went to a psychiatrist, where she identified his behaviour and together they worked towards changing his response, starting with unsubscribing to many of these on line shops.
There is a clue here. By turning off our mobile devises or by unsubscribing to the online stores which have been the most tempting is the best approach, but sometimes we do these things because we are fulfilling a need. Identifying these needs may take much longer and need the experience of a therapist to identify some of these needs. Often in addictions, stress, the need to relax, boredom, or lack of self esteem and confidence can be the drivers to participate in the activity that gives us that buzz, whether it’s smoking, drinking, eating doughnuts, snorting coke, gambling, or compulsive shopping.
If you, a friend or a family member are having difficulties stopping a
then hypnotherapy may help calm the mind, and solution focused therapy can help focus on what you want to achieve. Sometimes investing in our self, our own well-being and our sanity is worth much more than the latest designer handbag.