Kleptomania
An impulse control disorder that results in an irresistible urge to steal.
The cause of kleptomania remains unknown but risk factors include a family history of kleptomania or other impulse control disorders. It occurs more often in women.
Kleptomania is a serious disorder that causes an irresistible urge to steal items that aren’t needed and are usually of little value. Consequences can include job loss, financial penalties, and trouble with the law.
No cure exists. But treatment with talk therapy and medication, such as antidepressants, may help end the cycle of compulsive stealing.
Cluster Number:
Wiki Number: W110
Diagnosis: Kleptomania
US Patients:
World Patients:
Sex Ratio:
Age Onset:
Brain Area:
Symptoms: Urge to steal items for other than personal use or financial gain; an impulse control disorder
Progression:
Causes: increased dopamine and serotonin flows may result; maybe like an obsessive-compulsive disorder
Medications: SSRIs, mood stabilizers, opioid receptor antagonists, and antidepressants; naltrexone
Therapies: CBT
Youtube Video: Shoplifiting Addiction/Kleptomaniacs
and Shoplifters Anonymous
Amazon or Library Book: Why Usually Honest People Steal
Click the book to link or buy from Amazon.
4 CURRENT ARTICLES
FROM PUBMED
The world-wide medical research
reports chosen for each diagnosis
Clicking each title opens the
PubMed article’s summary-abstract.
- Test-retest reliability of decisions under risk with outcome evaluation: evidence from behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) measures in 2 monetary gambling tasksby Jia Jin on March 18, 2025
The balance between potential gains and losses under risk, the stability of risk propensity, the associated reward processing, and the prediction of subsequent risk behaviors over time have become increasingly important topics in recent years. In this study, we asked participants to carry out 2 risk tasks with outcome evaluation-the monetary gambling task and mixed lottery task twice, with simultaneous recording of behavioral and electroencephalography data. Regarding risk behavior, we observed...
- Recognition, management, and patient perspectives of impulsive-compulsive disorders in Parkinson's diseaseby Mirjam Wolfschlag on March 17, 2025
BackgroundImpulsive-compulsive disorders (ICDs) are commonly acknowledged as side effects of dopaminergic therapy in Parkinson's disease (PD). While many large-scale studies have focused on prevalences and high-risk treatments, little is known about practical management of ICDs in clinical care and patients' experiences.ObjectiveTo investigate how ICDs are recognized in clinical PD care, clinical features of patients with ICDs, and how patients are impacted by their ICD.MethodsQuestionnaires...
- Methodologies and estimates of social costs of gambling: A scoping reviewby Sari Hautamäki on March 13, 2025
The definition and measurement of social costs has been debated in gambling literature. Predominant framings of gambling have depicted it as a leisure activity without significant costs other than those caused directly by problem gambling. This view has been recently challenged with a public health perspective, adopting a wider definition of social costs that span beyond issues related to treatment and crime. Definitional debates have resulted in highly heterogenous approaches to calculating the...
- Attachment Security Priming Reduces Risk-Taking and Emotional Responses to Lossby Beiyi Wang on March 10, 2025
We examined the effects of attachment security priming on economic risky decisions and their neural underpinnings. Participants were exposed to either attachment security primes (N = 28) or control primes (N = 29) and then completed a gambling task while connected to an electroencephalogram system. We anticipated that attachment security priming would affect risky decision-making at both the behavioral and neural levels. Feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P3 components were analyzed. At the...