The medicalization of compulsive buying

• Published in: Social science & medicine (1982) Vol. 58; no. 9; pp. 1709 - 1718
• Main Authors: Lee, Shirley, Mysyk, Avis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.05.2004; Elsevier; Pergamon Press Inc
• Series: Social Science & Medicine
• Subjects: Addictions; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Behavior, Addictive - classification; Behavior, Addictive - economics; Behavior, Addictive - epidemiology; Behavior, Addictive - therapy; Biological and medical sciences; Commerce; Comorbidity; Compulsive Behavior - classification; Compulsive Behavior - economics; Compulsive Behavior - epidemiology; Compulsive Behavior - therapy; Compulsive buying; Compulsive buying Medicalization Labelling; Compulsive Personality Disorder - classification; Compulsive Personality Disorder - therapy; Compulsivity; Consumers; Consumption; Deviant Behavior; Disruptive, Impulse Control, and Conduct Disorders - classification; Disruptive, Impulse Control, and Conduct Disorders - therapy; Female; Health; Humans; Labeling; Labelling; Male; Medical sciences; Medical sociology; Medical treatment; Medicalization; Medicine; Miscellaneous; Neuroses; North America; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Purchasing; Sex Factors; Shopping; Social Class; Social control; Social sciences; Sociology, Medical; Therapy; Canada; North America; America; Compulsive buying; Medicalization; Labelling; Consumer; Deviance; Compulsion; Mental disorder; Critical study; Nosology; Purchases; Social aspect
• ISSN: 0277-9536; 1873-5347
• DOI: 10.1016/S0277-9536(03)00340-X

Compulsive buying has recently been the subject of numerous articles from both consumer research and psychiatric perspectives. Identified by some researchers as a compulsion and by others as an addiction, common solutions to the problem have included drug treatments, participation in self-help groups and cognitive behaviour therapy. The purpose of this article is to examine critically the labelling of compulsive buying in terms of medicalization from the perspective of both medical and non-medical social control of “deviant” consumers. We suggest that the attempt to categorize compulsive buying as an illness represents the ongoing trend to medicalize behavioural problems which may be better understood within the wider context of related phenomena such as the fiscal crisis of the 1980s and 1990s and the consumption-driven economy of North America.