To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop

This book has been phenomenally helpful in allowing me to understand the "demons" that I have obviously been living with for so many years. I am now 66 years old and finally coming to terms with the underlying reasons for the behaviors that I have struggled with over and over again throughout my life. Thank you Dr. Benson!

Take one (former) shopaholic. Give her a Ph.D. in psychology and ten years experience treating over-shopping. Publish her book about how to get free of the vast consumer conspiracy surrounding us, and you have Dr. April Lane Benson and her vital new book: To Buy or Not to Buy. This is not a comfortable book for me to read. I find my behavior unmasked and as undeniable as my shoulder-length gray hair. Have I used shopping to feel better about myself? Yes. Have I used shopping to avoid confronting a situation I want to avoid? Yes. Have I used shopping as a weapon to express anger? Yes. Sometimes yes to all of the above, and other questions in chapter one. Like a trip to the dentist, confronting my negative behavior and the psychology behind it can be painful, but also healing. I love this book, because there is healing in getting the rot out. Dr. Benson offers a way to find authentic happiness to replace the false esteem of keeping up with (or exceeding) the 'Joneses'. She points out the relentless consumerism driving our economy, with tentacles invading our conciousness through stores, malls, television, catalogs, Internet and even cell phone shopping. She uncovers the true cost of credit card purchases, and documents the ways invisible forces demand that we buy "more more more and now now now". Knowledge is power. Self-knowledge is the power to change. To Buy or Not to Buy is a tool that can enable us to get free of our compulsive shopping. If you are confident that you don't have any shopping addictions, I challenge you to go to browse inside her book - consider the many ways we can fool ourselves into buying things to fill an emotional hole rather than a material need. I recognized some of my buying patterns in her analysis, and also patterns of friends and relatives. Our materialistic society is even more insidious than I suspected. There is compassion and not condemnation in Dr. Benson's words. I recommend her book and I will be spending the next three months working through all the exercises. I have two pages of notes this morning, a start to the journal she recommends keeping. There is no such thing as an insignificant cavity - as we all know, sooner or later it will destroy the tooth. I am going to be working on the occasional - but not insignificant - ways that I over-shop, and expect that the result will be good, even if the process is sometimes painful.

Dr. Benson is a highly regarded expert clinician who has inspired many to change destructive behaviors through her careful translation of clinical practice and research acumen into demonstrable results. Living in a consumptive society poses many challenges and Dr. Benson's knowledge of not only why people are driven to overspend but how they can stop makes this book a critical purchase -setting one on a path of greater awareness and control. Invaluable! Melanie Katzman, Ph.D.

Excellent book It is quite impressive in every way - especially its balance of helpful therapeutic programs, careful organization, and deep thinking. Prof. Morris B. Holbrook, Columbia Business School

I am enthusiastically endorsing this new book from Dr. April Benson, one of the pioneers in the research, study, and treatment of compulsive shopping and spending. There may be other books out there on this topic but Dr. Benson culls together stories, exercises, theory, and statistics in a way that is easy to read and use and which powerfully impacts our emotions to break through denial but also empower us with hope and commitment to change. In a time where compulsive shopping and spending has reached its pinnacle (or nadir), this book comes not a moment too soon! I can also say, as a colleague of Dr. Benson, that her commitment to helping others is unparalleled. Her voice is a clarion call through the din of insanity which offers a clear path toward wholeness and a healthy relationship to things, money, shopping and spending. Read this book now--for yourself or someone you love!