Psychiatrists identify shopaholic work stress disorder

Stressed
workers who indulge in retail therapy run the risk of developing a serious
psychiatric disorder.

Experts
say compulsive shopping can be brought on through stress-relieving shopping
sprees after retail therapy was listed along with addictions to gambling and
alcohol in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – the
official reference book for US psychiatrists.

Researchers
say that the disorder, characterised by binge shopping and subsequent financial
hardship, affects one in 10 people, with women nine times as likely as men to
become shopaholics.

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In
America, doctors are currently doing tests on antidepressants to see if they
will control the unstoppable shopping urges.

By Michael Millar