Terrence Daryl Shulman: Cluttered lives, empty souls. Compulsive stealing, spending & hoarding Infinity Publishing, 2011. xxv + 247 pp. / Charles L. Whitfield: Wisdom to know the difference. Core issues in relationships, recovery and life.

How to understand your and others’ common conflicts and how to heal them. With references to practical psychology, spirituality and Twelve Step work. MHP – Muse House Press, Pennington, 2012, 326 pp

Buda, Béla

Gyepesi, Áron

Journal of Behavioral Addictions

Repository of the Academy's Library

BOOK REVIEWSTerrence Daryl ShulmanCluttered lives, empty souls. Compulsive stealing, spending & hoardingInfinity Publishing, 2011. xxv + 247 pp.ISBN 0-7414-6712-7In Cluttered lives, empty souls Terrence Daryl Shulmanpresents five behavioral addiction disorders. Compulsiveshoplifting, employee theft, compulsive shopping andhoarding are becoming gradually known these days, butonly a moderate body of empirical data are available. Thefifth disorder – rule breaking and risk taking – is an odd oneout, because it cannot be considered as a uniform diagnosticcategory but a feature of different psychiatric conditionssuch as antisocial personality disorder, conduct disorder orADHD. Nevertheless, stealing (shoplifting and theft),spending and hoarding share some underlying commonali-ties. These disorders are centered around the acquisition ofthings and money; clients frequently display physical, emo-tional or financial boundary issues. Narcissistic tendenciesare prevalent; some kind of victimization can be frequentlyunfolded in the lives of the clients, beside feelings of anxi-ety, inadequacy and emptiness. Through selected case stud-ies the author draws the typical profile of a patient. Thismethod has the advantage of avoiding pending terminologi-cal questions and controversial diagnostic criteria. The actu-ality of this book is enhanced due to the upcoming publica-tion of the DSM–5 (previously: DSM–V) in 2013. The newmanual will contain hoarding disorder under obsessive–compulsive and related disorders category (APA, 2012).Shulman is not only an attorney, therapist and consultantbut a former shoplifter too, who has been in recovery formore than twenty years. He knows the dynamics of this ad-diction from an inner perspective and he is familiar with theoften incredulous or even hostile reactions of the social envi-ronment. Shulman is the founder of CASA (Cleptomaniacsand Shoplifters Anonymous) and The Shulman Center forCompulsive Theft, Spending & Hoarding. He is specializedin counseling clients with theft-, shopping-, spending- andhoarding addictions. His working method incorporates notonly the traditional face-to-face counseling conversation buthe does so via internet or phone as well. Beyond that – real-izing the social aspect and consequences of these disorders –Shulman often involves the clients’ family into the therapeu-tic procedure. Shulman addresses not only experts but thepublic as well; he organized and presented on several con-ferences, went frequently on air and has featured on dozensof TV shows. He launched websites offering help and sup-port for addicts and their families.His fourth book, Cluttered lives… is divided into eightparts. Five chapters deal with the five disorders mentionedabove; the sixth contains interviews with professionals; andthe last two present some relevant research, theory and re-lated topics and articles. The great majority of the researchbody was conducted by the Schulman Center. These data areprecious especially in view of just how difficult it is to col-lect reliable data given the discrete nature of clients.When presenting the characteristics of the disorders,Shulman follows the same method for each problematic be-havior: delineation of the ten underlying core beliefs, top tenreasons, and some online survey results conducted by TheShulman Center; followed by typologies of patients and ‘20questions’ for assessing the disorder in focus. The main partof each chapter is the compilation of stories. Patients telltheir life stories with their own words, which makes themvivid and animate. These stories cannot be considered casestudies, because they follow the patients’ reconstruction andlack the clinically oriented editing. However, they serve thepurpose of a self-help book exceedingly and encourage af-fected patients to search for help. Some may miss the clini-cian’s professional focus which guides the reader and helpsto ‘connect the dots’ between life episodes and symptoms. Itwould be gladsome to get more insight to the process of thetherapy: in general Shulman tells us what happened, but nothow it happened. For example, one of her patients realizedthat serial arrests as a consequence of shoplifting are a formof self-punishment, but the author does not give any guide-lines as to understand the underlying psychodynamic pro-cesses. From a professional point of view it would be helpfulto learn more about Schulman’s system. However, his workprimarily targets clients and is not intended to serve as clini-cal or treatment guidance. It seems that Shulman is workingpartly on psychodynamic bases. He emphasizes loss, abuse,neglect, emotional and/or material deprivation, trauma orbetrayal occurring often in patients’ lives. Even so, he doesnot use the psychoanalytic terminology so his writing is freeof professional phrasing thus easy to read for those whomthe book is indeed aimed at. His counseling methods arepragmatic: he uses psycho-education and behavioral tech-niques (e.g. identification of trigger factors and finding sub-stituting activities) which resemble some cognitive-behav-ioral methods. The seventh part of the book contains self-ex-ploration questions and positive/negative life-event recol-lection exercise, further extending the pragmatic value of thebook. The lack of theoretical clarification will presumablynot disturb laymen; however, it catches the eyes of aprofessional.Shulman’s main assumption is that these disorders(mainly compulsive shoplifting) can be considered as at-tempts to get something back symbolically which had beentaken from the client. Shoplifters’ core beliefs are ‘life is un-fair’, ‘the world is unsafe’, ‘nobody takes care of me’, etc.Reasons for shoplifting mirror these beliefs; stealing for ex-ample can be a mean of making life fair. Shulman separatesaddictive-compulsive stealing and DSM-IV diagnosed klep-tomania. He views addictive-compulsive stealing as a be-havioral addiction, where ever-present compulsive urgesdominate the behavior, whereas kleptomania is an im-ISSN 2062-5871 © 2012 Akadémiai Kiadó, BudapestJournal of Behavioral Addictions 1(2), pp. 83–85 (2012)DOI: 10.1556/JBA.1.2012.2.7pulse-control disorder where the tension increases just be-fore the theft. Nowadays critical voices are not to remain un-heard in connection with the DSM impulse-control disor-ders and alternative theoretical categorizations have come tolight. For example the ‘obsessive–compulsive spectrum hy-pothesis’ of addictive disorders developed by Hollander(1993). However, Shulman does not take the advantage ofpresenting the current theoretical development on the field.The author focuses on pragmatic, real-life issues and citeslittle of the scientific results. This is why Shulman’s writingshould be considered an easy-to-read, jargon-free self-helpbook. Even so, the last two chapters are less structured andthe different topics (research data, questions for self-explo-ration, quotations, and professional contacts) follow eachother in a quasi-ad hoc order.REFERENCESAPA (2012). DSM-5 Development. Retrieved April 26, 2012, fromhttp://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevision/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=398#Hollander, E. (1993). Obsessive–compulsive spectrum disorders:An overview. Psychiatric Annals, 23(7), 355–358.The supreme virtue of this writing I think lies in its ca-pacity to raise hope in those affected by these quite rare andsocially criticized disorders. The ‘20 Questions’ for eachdisorder may help affected ones to realize the extent and se-verity of their problem. This revelation can be the first steptoward professional treatment and recovery. Shulman’s edu-cative efforts are remarkable, and one cannot overemphasizethe importance of informing the public opinion about the no-table financial, legal and emotional consequences of com-pulsive theft, shopping and hoarding disorders.Áron GyepesiInstitute of Psychology,Eötvös Loránd University,Budapest, HungaryCharles L. WhitfieldWisdom to know the difference. Core issues in relationships, recovery and life.How to understand your and others’ common conflicts and how to heal them.With references to practical psychology, spirituality and Twelve Step work.MHP – Muse House Press, Pennington, 2012, 326 pp.ISBN: 978-1-935827-10-8Wisdom to know the difference. Core issues in relationships,recovery and life is a special volume of self-help andeasy-to-understand psychology written for people with alco-hol, drug or behavioral addictions and those with co-de-pendence to help them in their recovery process and generallife problems. I recommend this book to anybody whose lifemay involve any of these.The title recalls The Serenity Prayer of ReinholdNiebuhr, often mentioned in Twelve Step programs andtherapeutic communities:God grant me the serenityTo accept the things I cannot change;Courage to change the things I can;And wisdom to know the difference.The subtitle sums up the content of the book and suggeststhat it might be useful for a wide audience, much wider thanaddicts and their families and friends. It contains a statementthat our conflicts generate and maintain our problems. Itshows us how to heal not only ours, but that at times we canconsider assisting with those of others. This is important be-cause recovery can be reached only in an interpersonal ma-trix. To better understand our conflicts we need to dialoguewith others, since we often can profit from feedback duringour recovery. A bright idea of the book is that we need feed-back along the recovery process. Help should come fromsafe others, which should avoid teasing, bullying and otherforms of verbal aggression that would hurt our self-esteemand evoke negative feelings such as shame.Dr. Whitfield has vast experience in helping people introuble. He has already published two influential booksabout his methods, which form the basis of the present textalthough only one – Healing the child within – has been inforeground until now.His theoretical model to explain developmentaltraumatisation is simple: “When a child grows up in a crazy(abusive, traumatic or neglectful) family and a crazy world,several crucial things happen. Their associated emotionalpain becomes so intense that the child’s Real Self goes intohiding… To survive, it overdevelops a false self (ego), andas part of the process it learns to use several mechanisms anddynamics to defend itself from the inordinate emotional painthat it experiences repeatedly.” – which is a major theme ofhis first book. Here he concludes: “We can summarize anddescribe a large part of these defense mechanisms most sim-ply as involving and often being core recovery issues” (p. 2),– continuing the developmental and psychodynamic historydescribed in the former book. Recovery goes with rediscov-ery of our Real Self, healing the hurt Child Within, withidentification of our needs, and especially the need to“…identify, re-experience and grieve the pain of ourungrieved hurts, losses and traumas in the presence of safeand supportive people” (p. 4). The core issues described inthis book are related to our emotional pain elaborated beforeand in the course of recovery.The author clearly discourages diagnostic labels, stigma-tization, and overmedicalization of personal problems, inthis text as well as in the former two. He enthusiastically84 | Journal of Behavioral Addictions 1(2), pp. 83–85 (2012)Book reviewssupplies arguments on how to avoid losing personal auton-omy by oversimplifying problems through the the commonmisdiagnosis of mental illness and by having us believe weare crazy. He analyzes the 15 core issues in some detail,which include: control, trust, being real, low self-esteem, de-pendence, fear of abandonment, all-or-none thinking, hightolerance for inappropriate behavior, over-responsibility forothers, difficulty giving and receiving love, etc. He contrib-utes to people’s positive recovery by giving them concepts,information, valid psychological knowledge and experien-tial aids to help work through the core issues.The text is like a popular handbook of developmentalpsychopathology, a guide to get access to repressed traumamemories and to cope with and work through emotional andbehavioral pain. Dr. Whitfield shows us how to create orderfrom the inner chaos – which had generated inappropriateand self-defeating behavior – and how to enhance motiva-tion and successful methods for change. He gives lots ofclear ways to access feelings, including how to identify andhandle age regression. He guides us through the importantissue of being able to grieve and develop new skills in orderto cope with troubles and heal our self with new and positivenarratives.Each chapter is filled with tables and figures which serveas reminders as well as cognitive contexts for the humanproblems to be solved. Obviously the therapeutic commu-nity as a safe environment is the background and basis ofsuch themes and self-understanding which leads to recov-ery. In such frame the text provides guidelines, insight, cuesto self-observation and learning to handle feelings. I recom-mend this new book – likely to become a classic read in re-covery – to experts, co-workers and users of addiction ther-apy.Béla BudaMD, psychiatristBudapest, HungaryJournal of Behavioral Addictions 1(2), pp. 83–85 (2012) | 85Book reviews

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