This book presents a starker reality. The contributors, from either personal or theoretical perspectives, convey something of the desperation of the experience.

Adrienne Baker considers the concept of addiction in relation to shopping and asks whether all-consuming shopping is a separate phenomenon or just an extreme of an "everyday" activity. Listening to people who see themselves as addictively shopping and who try to find meaning in what they are doing, she explores the contradiction of impoverishment in the midst of plenty. 

As with other addictive behaviours, addictive shopping is both functional and dysfunctional. There is, however, a distinction, for shopping is an expected and an acceptable activity: we are exhorted to shop, the images offer fulfilment of desire. Yet, for the person who seeks in it a salve for emotional pain, the magic doesn't work: the brave attempt to heal the self fails.

Chapters include: An addictive shopper's reflections on the personal meaning of shopping uncontrollably, Rosalind Minsky from a psychoanalytic perspective on consuming "goods", Simon du Plock and David Horne on shopping as a response to existential anxiety, Richard Elliott on "revenge" in addictive consumption; Paula Riddy on covert family communications.

REVIEW: This book is generally well written, carefully researched and well illustrated with case histories... 

ABOUT THE EDITOR: Adrienne Baker is Senior Lecturer and Academic Coordinator at the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, Regent's College, London.