Pod Insights All In The Mind Kleptomania: when compulsive stealing takes over your life About this episode What drives some people to steal compulsively?
This week, as part of our special four-part series Criminal Psychology, we're talking about kleptomania and the impact it can have on a person's life.
We speak to someone who’s been diagnosed with kleptomania about their experiences; from their urges to steal, to the guilt and shame they feel.
We also chat to a psychiatrist about what treatment looks like for people with kleptomania.
Guests:
Lynn
Dr Sam ChamberlainProfessor of Psychiatry, University of Southampton
Credits:
Presenter/Producer: Sana QadarReporter/Senior Producer: James BullenProducer: Rose KerrSound Engineer: Emrys CroninVoice Actor: Swa KaushikMore information:
Symptom Severity and Its Clinical Correlates in Kleptomania https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5935224/A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study of the Opiate Antagonist, Naltrexone, in the Treatment of Kleptomania https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(08)01481-9/abstractWhy do young children sometimes steal? And what should parents do about it? https://theconversation.com/why-do-young-children-sometimes-steal-and-what-should-parents-do-about-it-200906Kleptomania — Mayo Clinic https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/kleptomania/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20364753Kleptomania and Potential Exacerbating Factors https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3225132/
Transcript 4,788 words · 12 speakers
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0:37 Speaker 03 What comes to mind when you hear the term kleptomania? Maybe it's celebrities like Winona Ryder, Farrah Fawcett and Lindsay Lohan?
0:46 Speaker 04 A jury at the trial of actress Winona Ryder has heard she was preparing for an acting role when she was first detained last December on suspicion of shoplifting at a store in Hollywood.
0:57 Speaker 03 Or depictions in popular culture, like Breaking Bad.
1:00 Speaker 05 Excuse me, bitch, I just called the police. Okay then, I know you stole that spoon.
1:06 Speaker 03 What might not come to mind is fear, anxiety and pain.
1:11 Speaker 06 I've often felt like a very bad human for it. I felt like the worst human on earth because of it.
1:17 Speaker 07 Obviously, there's a lot of stigma around the condition and also a lot of people aren't aware that it's a recognised mental health condition.
1:23 Speaker 03 This week on Criminal Psychology, our four-part series for All in the Mind, we're going somewhere a little different. Because while on face value, a person with kleptomania is doing something criminal.
1:35 Speaker 06 Almost everywhere I go right now, I have to steal something.
1:38 Speaker 03 There's a whole lot more to it than that.
1:40 Speaker 07 Often people with these conditions think they're the only person affected, but actually, you know, lots of people across the globe are affected by kleptomania.
1:47 Speaker 03 I'm Sana Qadar. Today, what it's like to live with kleptomania, plus what we know about treating it, and what's still a mystery.
1:56 Speaker 06 I've never been caught, and I hope to let it stay that way, but I'm not sure how long I'll be able to.
2:03 Speaker 03 All in the Mind's senior producer, James Bullen, is our reporter for this one. James, hey.
2:08 Speaker 08 Hey, Sana.
2:09 Speaker 03 What are we going to hear today?
2:10 Speaker 08 Today, we're going to hear the story of one woman who was diagnosed with kleptomania, a little bit about how she got to that point and how it's affected her life.
2:19 Speaker 03 We speak to a lot of people who have lived experience in various mental health conditions. I don't think we've ever spoken to someone who has kleptomania before.
2:27 Speaker 08 Finding someone who's both diagnosed with kleptomania and happy to chat to us, you know, that was hard. But we found Lynne, and she was really generous in sharing what life is like for her and kind of her journey.
2:40 Speaker 03 And she's not from Australia, though, is she?
2:42 Speaker 08 She's not from Australia. She's from Western Europe, but she was understandably really concerned about being identified. So the voice you'll hear for this episode is an actor. We did the interview with Lynne, and then it's being voiced by someone else.
2:56 Speaker 03 And so when did it all start for Lynne? When did she start stealing?
2:59 Speaker 08 Earlier than you might expect in some ways. So she says her first memories of stealing were when she was seven years old.
3:10 Speaker 06 I was at a friend's house with my parents, and out of nowhere, actually, I took some of the toys, like the Playmobil toys of the kid. And I didn't really know why. I didn't really realise it either, but I just put it in my pocket and left. And there was a small toy that fell out of my pocket. And my dad asked me, like jokingly, "Oh, are you stealing something from there?" And I was like, "What? No, what are you saying?" But I didn't realise yet, I think. And like, years following from there, I took small things sometimes. Like, when I saw a pencil laying somewhere, I took it. But not, no big things.
3:47 Speaker 03 So wait, I have to stop us there because this feels like very familiar behaviour. I have a preschooler. He definitely has nicked things from daycare from time to time. Do I need to be worried about, you know, him?
3:58 Speaker 08 That's a good point. And if you are listening and worrying, this is my kid, this is my child. This is a normal thing that kids do. It doesn't mean that they have kleptomania.
4:07 Speaker 03 Okay, thank goodness. Why do they do it, then?
4:10 Speaker 08 A whole heap of reasons. If they're really young, like if they're two through even to about five years old, they might still be developing their sense of ownership and that other people own things and they're taking someone else's stuff.
4:22 Speaker 09 Right.
4:23 Speaker 08 It can be because they're bored, they want attention from their friends, their parents, a bit of peer pressure.
4:28 Speaker 09 That's the attention one is definitely probably my kid.
4:31 Speaker 08 Yeah, a whole heap of things. And there's an article we'll put on the show notes that kind of goes into more detail on this if people want to dig into it. But for Lyn particularly, that early stealing did continue on through her teenage years and got worse over time. And by the time she was about 17, those urges were getting much stronger.
4:53 Speaker 06 I started stealing more often. I was in my second year of university when it all really went down. I stole an umbrella at the university once. I started stealing in shops too. Like it was a camping shop that I took a thing with just hair ties, I think, from the shop. And from then on, I started stealing regularly. Almost everywhere I go right now, I have to steal something, which is really disabling for me.
5:17 Speaker 08 The urges Lyn experiences have pretty much taken over.
5:21 Speaker 06 Almost everywhere I go, I have the feeling that I need to take something. I don't always take something because sometimes it's simply not possible because there are too many people around. But I do take things very often, from friends, from family, from shops, from, I don't know, the people I babysit.
5:39 Speaker 08 And at the age of 22, Lyn says that these urges are just about impossible to resist.
5:45 Speaker 06 It feels like I'm being pulled towards a certain object. I see something and I'm like, I have to take it. It feels like there's no way of not taking it. And there's, those are not things that I need or that I want. Often it's like things I would totally not even buy. Like if I have the money, I have enough money to buy stuff. And it's things like, let me think.
6:08 Speaker 06 Like the umbrella. I have five umbrellas at home. I really didn't need another one. And I just took it because there was just an urge. Yeah, just... I felt like I was being pulled towards the object and I had to take it. And yeah, it's really difficult to explain it because it's just really an urge. I don't really think about it too much. It's a bit of a compulsion, maybe.
6:32 Speaker 08 And once she's taken the object, even if it's something totally trivial...
6:37 Speaker 06 At first, it's like big euphoria. Yes, I did it and it worked out and I didn't get caught. But afterwards, after a minute already, I feel so very guilty about it. And I feel like a terrible human being. And yeah, I just feel really bad about it, actually. But there's two kinds of feelings at the same time. Like, the euphoria is still there. And I'm very happy with being able to have taken the object. But also the guilt is there very strongly from the beginning, too. I've seen many videos online. Oh, I have kleptomania, but I only take from big shops so people are not disadvantaged by it. But that's not how it works. It's really an urge.
7:22 Speaker 06 And it's not like I can stop it because it's a small shop or because it's a friend. People often think that. And they think that, like, I choose to do it. But it's, yeah, really not that way.
7:40 Speaker 06 I had some mental health issues. I was also diagnosed with OCD at age 16. But I had symptoms of it way earlier as well. And I actually went to the psychologist at age 13, I think. At first, I purely talked about OCD and self-harm and depressive symptoms and stuff like that.
8:00 Speaker 08 But when she was about 18, she started to feel more comfortable bringing up these stealing urges. She told her psychologist that she'd looked up the symptoms online. And it sounded a lot like kleptomania.
8:13 Speaker 06 I was feeling very ashamed of it. At first, I didn't want to admit it. It took a lot of trust to be able to open up about it, but eventually I did. And at age 20, I went to a psychiatrist for other things as well. But the psychiatrist was in the same office as the psychologist. So they knew about my stuff. I went, I'm pretty sure that I have kleptomania. Could I get an official diagnosis? She just went over the symptoms with me, the criteria, and she was like, yeah, it's very clearly kleptomania. And that's how I got diagnosed. It's less people who have kleptomania, but it's still like a lot of people who have it. But it's so difficult to find people with it.
8:58 Speaker 06 And it's very lonely and very stigmatized.
9:05 Speaker 03 This is All in the Mind. I'm Sana Qadar. Today, kleptomania, a compulsive and consuming urge to steal. It's a condition that's rare, often misunderstood, and debilitating. And James, it strikes me that Lyn was also diagnosed with OCD and depressive symptoms. What do we know about the links between all of those?
9:26 Speaker 08 There is a little bit of research out there. And what it finds is that more severe symptoms of kleptomania are linked to having a current diagnosis of OCD. And they're also linked to having an eating disorder. And in that same study that made those findings, they found that this group of people who were diagnosed with kleptomania, they typically stole once or twice a week. And almost two thirds of them had been arrested for shoplifting at some point.
9:52 Speaker 03 Oh, wow.
9:59 Speaker 07 Kleptomania is a mental health condition, but it's not really been very well studied. And it's quite different to normal stealing.
10:07 Speaker 08 This is Sam Chamberlain. He's a professor of psychiatry at the University of Southampton in the UK.
10:13 Speaker 07 Based on the evidence so far, we think it affects around three people in every thousand. So in terms of other mental health conditions, that would make it relatively uncommon. For example, if we compare that to something like depression, which could affect, say, 10% of the population at some point in life, then kleptomania is relatively rarer.
10:31 Speaker 08 Sam says what makes kleptomania different to stealing is essentially what Lynne described. People steal not because they need or want something, they have an urge to steal, an impulse that's impossible to resist.
10:46 Speaker 07 Often beforehand, they describe a sense of tension and then after the stealing, they often will describe a sense of pleasure or gratification or relief from doing it. But then at the same time, often they might regret it and feel that they weren't able to control it. So that's the important thing to emphasise, is it's an impulse controlled disorder rather than a person stealing for their own kind of benefit or gain.
11:11 Speaker 08 It can affect people of any age, but Lynne's experience is a common one.
11:16 Speaker 07 I would expect it to emerge during teenage years and early adulthood because that's the time when the brain is undergoing a lot of rewiring, a lot of development, and people tend to be a little bit more impulsive when they're younger as well. At the same time, you know, I've known some people who develop this later in life out of the blue, so it's really variable.
11:33 Speaker 08 In terms of what causes kleptomania at this stage, we're still not really sure. But there may be clues in how it links to conditions that involve impulsivity.
11:42 Speaker 07 What we do know is we find associations with particular factors. For example, in terms of a person's personality and their cognitive function. And this is true of other conditions that are related to kleptomania like obsessive compulsive disorder, but also other impulsive conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. So what we often see in people with kleptomania is that they have high trait impulsivity. This means that in terms of their personality, they have a tendency towards doing things in the spur of the moment, maybe in response to reward, and perhaps not planning things through to the extent that a less impulsive person would. So that's quite a common feature that we see and we can also link that to some kind of subtle changes in what's going on in the brain as well.
12:25 Speaker 08 There were only a handful of studies in this area, but what they do is recruit people with kleptomania and then a similar group of people who are the controls who don't have the condition.
12:36 Speaker 07 What the study would tend to do is put people in brain scanner so we can look at the structure of the brain, so how it looks. But also we can look at the function of the brain, so how active it is. For example, when people are looking at pictures on a, on a computer screen. And there's been just a handful, just a couple of imaging studies in people with kleptomania. What the work of Professor John Grant has shown, who's based in Chicago, is some subtle differences in parts of the brain that are involved in connecting. For example, the frontal lobes to other parts of the brain. So the, what we call the white matter tracts seem to be subtly different. Now, it's important that I explain here that this isn't a change in the brain that you would see physically.
13:17 Speaker 07 If you looked at a person's scan, these are subtle differences between groups of people with the condition, with kleptomania and match controls.
13:25 Speaker 08 And while kleptomania hasn't been compared directly to other conditions that involve difficulties with impulse control, it's the same parts of the brain that seem to be affected.
13:35 Speaker 07 We also see changes in the white matter tracts, connecting these key brain regions in people with other conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder. So probably there's some kind of common brain processes contributing to these different conditions.
13:54 Speaker 03 So James, what else fits under this impulse control umbrella?
13:58 Speaker 08 Yeah, it's a whole set of disorders under the DSM. And these are a class of disorders that typically involve difficulty in resisting temptations or urges, that kind of thing. They do tend to be fairly rare, so pyromania is another one.
14:13 Speaker 03 Right, last week's episode.
14:14 Speaker 08 Yes, yes.
14:15 Speaker 03 Yeah. And so why is it important to kind of understand where this fits into that framework?
14:19 Speaker 08 So Sam Chamberlain says that it influences how we will treat the disorder. So understanding what it relates to and how it kind of fits into our broader kind of understanding of psychology influences what treatments people will get.
14:36 Speaker 06 I have never been caught and I hope to let it stay that way. But I'm not sure how long that I'll be able to because I've been in a university home since this year. And I've stolen from the local shop every time I go there every week. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep doing that without getting caught. This week I've not been to the shop because I was just too scared. And I just, I made sure that I didn't eat bread this week, which I would have bought at the shop. I just ate other things because I was too scared to go. Because I was like, oh no, I'm gonna steal something and I'll get caught and that will become an issue. And my parents will know and I'll be arrested and convicted and the anxiety starts going up from there.
15:20 Speaker 08 Lynne wants to become a clinical psychologist. But she's scared she'll one day have a criminal record and not be able to follow that dream.
15:28 Speaker 06 I think the anxiety is the biggest thing. And not everyone with kleptomania will experience this kind of anxiety, but I do. And I think it's just a strain on your relationships. Because I'm very scared to tell my parents, for example. I don't want them to worry about me too much. I really wanna talk about it with them, but I won't because I don't want them to be scared for my future and I don't want them to be worried about me. But yeah, I can also be afraid to go to a friend's house, for example. Because I'm like, maybe I'm gonna steal there and maybe they're gonna see it and be mad at me and don't understand. So it's just a lot of anxiety, I think. That's the main thing.
16:08 Speaker 08 She has told a few friends, but that's about it.
16:12 Speaker 06 And I've often felt like a very bad human for it. I felt like the worst human on earth because of it. Which I know I'm not, but it makes you feel so guilty. And I've told a few friends of mine quite recently, actually. I've told them, they were very kind about it, but I've, I've only told the friends that I'm very sure about that would be kind. I have other friends that I wouldn't tell because I know that their response could be questionable or could be more difficult.
16:41 Speaker 08 Psychiatrist Sam Chamberlain says it's typical that a person with kleptomania will conceal the condition from mostly everyone in their life. And he says the anxiety Lynn describes is all too common.
16:53 Speaker 07 We often see that people develop anxiety and depressive disorders and other addictions such as alcohol use disorder. Sometimes these can be a direct consequence of the kleptomania and other times they can sort of be happening in parallel. It can be really hard as well, like if family and loved ones find out about it, for them to understand and so that can lead to relationship difficulties. We also know that people with kleptomania have a worse quality of life on average than people that don't have that condition.
17:23 Speaker 08 So, once someone is diagnosed with kleptomania, how is it treated? Broadly speaking, the kind of treatments that have evidence are certain types of talking therapy and a particular medication.
17:34 Speaker 07 So, the talking therapy tends to be forms of cognitive behaviour therapy or CBT that have been adapted to help people with kleptomania. Usually it would be working with a trained clinical psychologist, so for an hour, working with them, meeting them, say, an hour a week over a couple of months.
17:52 Speaker 08 And with that psychologist, you look at the triggers for the stealing, the emotions surrounding it, and whether there are other things that might replace the stealing itself.
18:01 Speaker 07 Helping the person sort of train themselves to be able to resist those urges. There's also some evidence that kind of relaxation techniques and mindfulness can be useful too.
18:11 Speaker 08 So, that's the therapy side of things.
18:13 Speaker 07 And then in terms of the medication, the main evidence to date is for a medication called naltrexone.
18:18 Speaker 08 You might have heard of naltrexone already. It's a medication used for some types of addiction, like alcohol use disorder.
18:25 Speaker 07 So, we know from a randomised controlled trial that naltrexone was better than placebo pill at improving symptoms of people with kleptomania. It was a relatively small trial, but it was a good quality study. And so, naltrexone is often a useful choice, but obviously as with any medication, there are side effects for some people. Naltrexone is not officially licensed for kleptomania, and that's because nothing is. In any part of the world as far as I'm aware, and that's to do with a lack of interest in the condition, I suppose. So it doesn't mean there's no treatment that works. It's just a sort of political and practical thing that means that it doesn't have a particular licence.
19:04 Speaker 08 And just on that addiction thing before we go back to Lyn, because it's kind of interesting in a nerdy psychology way. Sam says how you look at kleptomania and what cluster of conditions it's counted under could be important too.
19:19 Speaker 07 There's different ways of conceptualising these conditions. I think that thinking about kleptomania as an addiction could be useful because it shows the sort of parallels with some other conditions. So what you see is that tension beforehand and a kind of relief or gratification from doing the act in a similar way that, for example, someone might might get some tension, have a drink of alcohol, and then that provides a sense of relief. As with other addictions, you know, it can be triggered by stress or particular exposure to things in the environment. So for someone with kleptomania, that could be being physically around shops. For someone with alcohol, that could be, you know, seeing an advert on TV for alcohol or seeing the bottle up on their shelves. Naltrexone as a medication treatment,
20:00 Speaker 07 really, that that was chosen because of these parallels between kleptomania and addiction because we we knew in that klept- um, naltrexone can be useful for some of the other addictions. At the same time, that doesn't necessarily mean that that's the only way of viewing it. And so at the moment, in one of our diagnostic systems, kleptomania is an impulse control disorder. So it's not in the same category as addictions. Yet we have something like gambling disorder is in that addictions category, but that's a little bit arbitrary. So there's other ways of trying to understand it as well, but I think the addiction model can be a useful way of thinking about it.
20:38 Speaker 08 Meta conversation about how we define and organise these disorders aside, there's Lyn's real life experience of treatment, and it's been mixed.
20:47 Speaker 06 So I did have therapy still for OCD and self-harm. But kleptomania was also added to the things that I got therapy for. So I learnt tricks for, for example, I had to do tricks like not bring a bag with me to the shop or have a card with me digitally on my phone that like showed the reasons why I shouldn't steal. The police or my parents or my friends, the anxiety of losing them. Stuff like that on a card on my phone, which I could look at when I felt bad. Um, like when I felt the urge to steal. But that hasn't really worked out for me. So that's one thing I tried.
21:23 Speaker 06 It was also the recommendation of my therapist to, when I stole something, to do something that I don't really like, like doing certain sports or something that I didn't really like, but that was good for me. Eating more food, for example, doing certain sport or stuff like that. But it also didn't really work. And right now with my therapist, we're trying out having a recording of my friends who say stuff like, "Try not to steal. I believe in you. You're so strong for not stealing." Stuff like that in the recording, which I can listen to on my headphones when I'm at the shop or something.
22:03 Speaker 08 Along with that, there's the medications.
22:05 Speaker 06 I tried one kind already, an anti-opioid, which is actually for alcohol abuse. But yeah, it's also been experimented with for kleptomania. Um, I've tried it for a month and it didn't really do anything. So now I'm just starting a new medication, an SSRI, which also could help with it. But I don't really know if it will help or not because I haven't tried it long enough yet. So that's a bit how I went further with it. So like therapy with medication. But so far, nothing has really helped enough to stop it or to really lessen it. It's difficult because it makes me feel hopeless a bit. Yeah.
22:48 Speaker 06 Will I ever get over this? Will it ever stop? Because I really don't want to live my whole life with this condition. And I also don't want to get arrested and have no future because of it. I don't want to end up in prison. And yeah, it sucks that it's, that the research isn't there yet.
23:13 Speaker 08 You might think it's a bit odd we've included this story as part of a series on criminal psychology. But for as long as the condition remains difficult to treat and stigmatized and hidden, people will be committing criminal acts and they will be at risk. If this is you...
23:31 Speaker 07 First step is, I would say, go and speak with your family doctor, with your GP. That's confidential. You know, you don't need to be concerned about legal consequences because in most parts of the world, that conversation with the doctor would be confidential and the doctor wouldn't disclose if someone's been stealing, except in particular circumstances, you know. So I think just acknowledging and coming forward for help is a really positive first step.
23:56 Speaker 08 He says people might also try and seek out support groups on the internet.
24:00 Speaker 07 There are some support groups out there, like I said, in some parts of the world, kind of kleptomaniac anonymous type groups. And that's not an evidence-based treatment for kleptomania, but sometimes people can find it useful discussing with other individuals who have similar problems. That can help a person sort of appreciate they're not alone. Often people with these conditions think they're the only person affected, but actually, you know, lots of people across the globe are affected by kleptomania.
24:26 Speaker 06 You don't know what battles people are fighting and kleptomania happens more often than you would expect. If you look at it people-wise, it's still a lot of people and it could be your loved one who's experiencing this without you knowing. So just to be open for talks, for conversations about difficult things and to show that you're non-judgmental. And just react kindly and help us. Like, it can help for me, for example. I have a friend who sometimes goes with me to the store and they take a bag, so I don't need to take it because I know that the urge will be bigger if I'm able to take things. Just ask us how you can support us.
25:10 Speaker 03 That is Lyn, who was diagnosed and is being treated for kleptomania. You also heard from Dr. Sam Chamberlain. He's a professor of psychiatry at the University of Southampton in the UK and he runs a treatment service for people with impulsive and compulsive problems. Thanks to producer Rose Kerr, senior producer James Bullen and sound engineer Emrys Cronin.
25:38 Speaker 03 I'm Sana Qadar. Oh, and next time on our series...
25:41 Speaker 10 The other personality trait you find more commonly in people who commit serial murder and sexual murder is obsessionality. And obsessionality is to do with the need to control people and have things the way that you want it. And again, when you think about people who commit serial murder, many of them are extremely controlling and meticulous individuals. So that probably relates to why they want to control other people, but also to how they can actually plan and do their crimes in a meticulous way because they're people that do lots of things in meticulous ways.
26:17 Speaker 03 That's next time on All in the Mind. Catch you then.
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