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Do you spend a lot of time fantasizing about your next shopping trip?
Does a spending spree give you a high?
Do you come home with items you did not plan to buy?
Do you experience pre-purchase tension and anxiety, and a sense of relief afterward?
Do you feel guilty for spending too much?
Do you find bargains irresistible, even if you don't need the item?
Do you keep buying the same kinds of things over and over again?

Do you sometimes experience blackouts, when you can't remember buying something?
Has your spending caused financial or legal problems?
Are you embarrassed by your debts?
Are your spending patterns a major bone of contention in your marriage?
Do you use shopping as a "fix" to overcome "downers" such as loneliness, tension, grief, boredom, disappointment, or guilt?
Do you lie about your spending patterns?

These may be signs of Compulsive Shopping Disorder. Psychologists have been interested in it for less than two decades, so the available information varies. There is disagreement about whether it is an impulse control disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or a symptom of other disorders. Pharmacological approaches are still controversial. Common sense seems to indicate that medicalizing this loss of personal accountability does nothing but encourage compulsive shoppers to see themselves as victims who can't help what they are doing and must be rescued by professional do-gooders, rather than as free human beings who need to learn self-discipline and make healthier choices.

"Buying mania" (aka "oniomania") was identified clinically early in the 20th century by psychologists Bleuler and Kraepelin. Bleuler described it as a "reactive impulse" or "impulsive insanity" similar to kleptomania and pyromania. "Buying is compulsive and leads to senseless contraction of debts with continuous delay of payment until a catastrophe clears the situation a little - a little bit never altogether because they never admit to their debts."

CSD tends to be a female phenomenon (although perhaps it is more hidden in males, who describe it by euphemisms such as "collecting" or "stocking up") clustered in families who often have other impulse-control or addiction problems, and in affluent societies with spare time, disposable cash, and ready availability of goods.

As with many mental health issues, there is a continuum of severity. Some people may have little trouble getting back on track after admitting that there is a problem and taking responsibility for solving it; others may be

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