Everything You Need to Know About Overshoppers and Overshopping
A 4-session Interactive Telecourse
for Financial Planners, Counselors, and Educators
Taught by April Lane Benson, Ph.D.
Editor - I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self (Aronson, 2000)
Author - To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop (Trumpeter, 2008)
DATES: 4 Fridays in 2010: January 22, 29, February 5, 12
TIMES: 10:30-11:45 a.m., Eastern Standard Time
FEE: $295 (early registration, before January 1, 2010, $245)
The course begins with a thorough introduction to "affluenza" or compulsive buying disorder, including the functions it serves, typical patterns, and other problems that often co-occur with it. We explore the culture of consumption that gives rise to it and the high price of materialism. We look at the professional unease that's common in working with overshoppers. We’ll discuss specific guidelines for assessing whether a client is a compulsive buyer and, if so, whether, when, and how to intervene. We continue with a survey of the forms of treatment and treatment adjuncts known to be effective with overshoppers, and focus in on specific tools and strategies. Finally, we take a close look at two seminal questions: What is shopping? and What are we really shopping for?
Educational Objectives:
Through readings and class discussion, you'll learn what compulsive buying is, how our culture supports it, what forms the disorder takes, how to assess it, and what its various functions are. Additionally, you'll learn how to determine when intervention is necessary and what forms of effective treatment and treatment adjuncts are available, whether or not you personally choose to do the focused, structured work so necessary for recovery. You'll become familiar with a variety of important tools, techniques, and strategies for working with compulsive buyers and learn how to find resources to broaden their base of support. Finally, together we'll deconstruct the shopping process. We’ll untie the knot that binds shopping and buying together so you can help overshoppers find out what they're really shopping for and how to get that.
Session 1 - Affluenza: Introduction to Compulsive Buying Disorder
In the first session, we explore what compulsive buying is, how it differs from normal buying, and how living in a culture of consumption affects it. We look at prevalence, at who becomes a compulsive buyer, at the question of gender, and at whether overshopping is best understood as a psychiatric disorder or a search for a better self. We also survey the variety of functions that it serves in the life of the compulsive buyer and touch on what’s often our professional unease when working with compulsive buying clients, either as financial planners, counselors, or educators.
Session 2 - What Works and Why: Forms of Treatment and Treatment Adjuncts
In this session we survey the various forms of treatment and treatment adjuncts. We review some of the treatment research and then focus on particular tools, skills, and strategies known to help people with compulsive buying disorder. Finally, we look at the issue of whether, when, and how to integrate specific compulsive buying interventions into your ongoing work with clients and, if not, how to find appropriate, effective resources.
Session 3 - The Birdseye View: Theoretical and Technical Perspectives
This session begins with the idea that compulsive shopping is but one form of a larger constellation of behaviors that have in common an intense desire to acquire, possess, and/or hoard objects. We touch on some of these related behaviors and explore what often leads us to overlook or underemphasize our clients’ buying behavior. We explore two very different approaches to working with overshoppers and discuss how to help clients feel motivated to do the serious work of making changes.
Session 4 - What is shopping? What Are We Really Shopping For?
In this final session, we explore shopping as search and discovery, not necessarily related to buying or having. We stretch out the landscape of shopping, moving beyond goods and services into experiences and ideas; and we look at research suggesting that when we choose experiences over things, we’re significantly happier. We close by revisiting the idea that authentic underlying needs propel the impulse to overshop, and we explore how to help the people we work with find ways to meet those needs in ways that enhance, rather than erode, life.
Readings and call details will be e-mailed to you when your registration is received. Each call will be recorded and you'll have access to these recordings should you have to miss a class or want to listen again.
In order for me to know something about your background, please forward your c.v. to me at info@stoppingovershopping.com.
