Lately, compulsive shopping, the illness, has been popping up in the news. Last May, U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly caused a stir when he reduced what could have been an 18-month jail sentence in an embezzlement and wire fraud case to two years of probation, six weeks of community service and a $3,000 fine. The defendant, Elizabeth Randolph Roach, had pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly a quarter of a million dollars from Andersen Consulting, where she earned a salary of $150,000 a year.

Roach, who was described by her lawyer as a chronic depressive who shopped compulsively in an effort to "self-medicate," had padded her corporate expense reports over three years in order to finance epic retail benders (one came to $30,000) and help pay down her $500,000 credit card debt. Shortly before she was fired from her job, she was arrested for shoplifting at Neiman Marcus where, as a formerly valued customer, she had once spent $7,000 on a belt buckle and $9,000 on a handbag. Judge Kennelly bought the shopaholic defense, declaring her chronic depression "the driving force" behind the crime.

Eight months before Roach's sentencing, Rosemary Heinen, an employee of Starbucks, was arrested for allegedly embezzling $3.7 million from her employer. Heinen's job consisted, in part, of reviewing and approving invoices that came into the company's information-technology department. Heinen reportedly created a bogus consulting company, which for a little under a year billed Starbucks for nonexistent services.

	Communiqué Compulsive scavenging is the impulse disorder for the downturn By Janelle Brown Print story E-mail story

When investigators searched the Heinen's suburban house, they reported finding it crammed with hundreds of boxes of Avon cosmetics, Barbie dolls and Franklin Mint products, all unopened. The hallways were clogged with piles of clothes and rooms were filled floor to ceiling with television sets, satellite receivers, Steinway pianos, stuffed animals and commemorative mugs. Also found were two motorcycles, a $200,000 powerboat and 31 cars -- including a 2001 911 Porsche Turbo and an inconspicuous yet practical Model T. Heinen agreed to repay $2.5 million and the items found her home have since been auctioned off to pay back Starbucks.

Roach and Heinen fit the criteria for compulsive shopping, which falls under the category of "Impulse-Control Disorders, Not Otherwise Specified," in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatry Association. Researchers have characterized the ailment more specifically as "a preoccupation with purchasing unneeded items that causes marked distress, social or occupational impairment and/or financial problems." According to a variety of estimates, based mostly on limited university studies, 2 to 8 percent of Americans are believed to be compulsive shoppers; women who suffer from this condition outnumber men 9 to 1. And as is so often the case with newfangled disorders, the statistics have led to self-help books, which have paved the way, inevitably, to a pill.

Last year, a team of researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine conducted a study on the effects of a drug called Celexa on compulsive shoppers; the initial results were published last fall. Dr. Lorrin Koran, a professor of psychiatry and the director of the obsessive-compulsive disorder clinic at Stanford University Medical Center, led the inquiry, which established that citalopram (Celexa is the brand name), a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI, helped curb the urge to purchase in compulsive shoppers.

Compulsive shoppers are described by Dr. Koran as a group of people "motivated by 'irresistible' impulses, characterized by spending that is excessive and inappropriate, has harmful consequences for the individual, and tends to be chronic and stereotyped."

The study concluded that "results suggest that citalopram may be effective for compulsive shopping. Additional research is needed to examine the role of mood symptoms in the initiation, continuance and relief of this disorder. Acute and long-term, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of citalopram and other SSRIs for the treatment of compulsive shopping are indicated." In a statement, the researchers added, "Citalopram produced marked improvements on both the Yale/Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale Shopping Version and the Clinical Global Impressions of Improvement Scale."

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