What is kleptomania?
Kleptomania is the recurrent inability to resist urges to steal items. The condition is often referred to as pathological aspiration.
Generally, the patient steals items that are not needed at all or not valuable at all.
Kleptomania is a rare but serious mental health disorder that can cause much emotional pain to you and your loved ones if not treated.
Kleptomania is a type of impulse control disorder — a disorder that's characterized by problems with emotional or behavioral self-control. Many people with kleptomania live lives of secret shame because they're afraid to seek mental health treatment.
Although there's no cure for kleptomania, treatment with medication or talk therapy (psychotherapy) may help to end the cycle of compulsive stealing.
Symptoms
Kleptomania symptoms may include:
Inability to resist powerful urges to steal items that you don't need
Feeling increased tension, anxiety or arousal leading up to the theft
Feeling pleasure, relief or gratification while stealing
Feeling terrible guilt, remorse, self-loathing, shame or fear of arrest after the theft
Return of the urges and a repetition of the kleptomania cycle
Features
People with kleptomania typically exhibit these features or characteristics:
Unlike typical shoplifters, people with kleptomania don't compulsively steal for personal gain, on a dare, for revenge or out of rebellion. They steal simply because the urge is so powerful that they can't resist it.
Episodes of kleptomania generally occur spontaneously, usually without planning and without help
Most people with kleptomania steal from public places, such as stores and supermarkets. Some may steal from friends or acquaintances, such as at a party.
Often, the stolen items have no value to the person with kleptomania, and the person can afford to buy them.
The stolen items are usually stashed away, never to be used. Items may also be donated, given away to family or friends, or even secretly returned to the place from which they were stolen.
Urges to steal may come and go or may occur with greater or lesser intensity over the course of time.
Causes
The cause of kleptomania is not known. Several theories suggest that changes in the brain may be at the root of kleptomania.
Kleptomania risk factors may include family history or having another mental illness.
However, some people with kleptomania may never seek treatment, or they're simply jailed after repeated thefts, so some cases of kleptomania may never be diagnosed.
Kleptomania often begins during the teen years or in young adulthood, but can start in adulthood or later.
Because the cause of kleptomania isn't clear, it's not yet known how to prevent it with any certainty.
Source:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/kleptomania/symptoms-causes/syc-20364732
