cover image Women Who Shop Too Much: Overcoming the Urge to Splurge

Women Who Shop Too Much: Overcoming the Urge to Splurge

Carolyn Wesson. St. Martin's Press, $16.95 (236pp) ISBN 978-0-312-03957-8

Attempting to ``fix feelings'' by compulsive shopping is identified as destructive behavior and an addiction by the author, a San Francisco therapist. Drawing on her own spending experiences, with vignettes about her clients and analysis of such monuments to excess as Imelda Marcos, Wesson ( Stepkids ) examines causes of the dysfunction and explores ways to overcome it. The binge buying sprees she describes, often leading to debt and bankruptcy, take diverse forms for women, and some men, and can be seen as ways of compensating for perceived personal shortcomings or sensed deprivations in life. Included in this helpful book, which may motivate shopaholics to tear up a number of their credit cards, are self-scoring tests to gauge the severity of one's problem and an 11-step program for ``balanced shopping.'' (Mar.)