|
| |
ARTICLES
Below
are two articles that examine the problem of Atypical Theft Behavior
carried out by otherwise generally honest adults.
 |
WHY
ESSENTIALLY HONEST PERSONS STEAL
|
By
Will Cupchik, Ph.D., C.Psych.
Originally
written at the request of, and published in The Los Angeles Psychologist
Newsletter, Vol.12, No. 3, 1998
INTRODUCTION
Forensic
psychologists and psychiatrists are sometimes referred individuals who are
described by their lawyers as heretofore honest, hard-working,
white/blue-collar workers, professionals, business people who may even be
pillars of their communities, or even public figures, yet for whom clinical
assessments are being sought that will explain why these clients
committed seemingly nonsensical, even bizarre, acts of shoplifting or
other kinds of theft.
Too
often, a diagnosis of kleptomania is forthcoming in such cases, even though one
of the stipulations of DSM IV[i]
is that in instances of kleptomania, the offender’s stealing is not committed
as a means of expressing anger. In
fact, however, our[ii]
original 1983 investigation[iii]
(carried out by me and Dr. D.J. Atcheson) and as corroborated by my[iv]
1996 study[v],
have clearly indicated that perhaps most so-called nonsensical or bizarre acts
of theft have been carried out by
persons who were, in fact, very
angry indeed at the time -- angry with their spouses, other ‘significant
others’, bosses or co-workers, God, and/or themselves.
In fact, in 1994, Dr. Atcheson and I estimated that of the hundreds of
theft offenders we had assessed, perhaps 2% to 3% were truly suffering from
kleptomania.
Not
infrequently, also, the assessing clinician will conclude that the accused
individual was depressed at the
time of the theft. The assessor may
then write a letter or report indicating that such theft behavior was an
aberrant act that is most unlikely to reoccur.
However, making a statement that the accused was depressed does not in
any way provide an explanation as to why
the person chose to commit an act of theft in response to feeling depression, in
preference to committing some other kind of aberrant behavioral response (such
as getting drunk, speeding, overeating, etc...).
Furthermore, assurances that there will be no further acts of theft not
infrequently turn out to be in error, and when the re-offending person appears
once again before the court perhaps weeks, months or years later, a new letter
or report suggesting that the offender stole once again “because he or she was
again depressed” may not be received at all well by the court.
Nor does such a clinician’s offering necessarily assist either the
comprehension of the court with regard to the latest theft; neither is the
offender enlightened in regard to understanding his or her behavior, or helped
to cease and desist from carrying out additional thefts in the future.
It
was fortuitous that between 1979 and 1983, while working on the forensic service
of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto, numerous such cases, usually
at their lawyers’ urgings, presented themselves to us for full clinical
assessments, usually involving psychological testing, plus clinical interviews
with members of the forensic assessment team, which included psychologists,
clinical social workers, and psychiatrists.
Dr.
Atcheson and I published the findings of our original study into the bizarre
theft behavior of generally honest persons in a 1983 article entitled, Shoplifting:
An Occasional Crime Of The Moral Majority. Our principle finding was that
most of the cases of apparently nonsensical or bizarre shoplifting that we
assessed appeared to have been perpetrated by persons who had acted out
in response to having anticipating experiencing, or
having actually experienced, what they perceived to be
unfair personally meaningful losses. Furthermore,
in virtually no cases had these individuals related their loss experiences to
their subsequent acts of theft. This
causal relationship seemed to have occurred in the majority of such cases;
indeed this psychological relationship between actual and/or anticipated loss and
acting out by shoplifting seemed so frequent an occurrence that we formally
articulated it as the Loss-Substitution-by-Shoplifting Hypothesis.
In
a chapter we wrote for the book Clinical Criminology: The Treatment and
Assessment of Criminal Behavior[vi]
we extended our formulation to include acts of fraud in addition to shoplifting.
Over
the period of the last eleven years during which time I have continued my
clinical investigations of theft behavior from within my private practice, I
have concluded that any type of theft
behavior may be perpetrated by generally honest and ethical persons, whom we
termed ‘Atypical Theft
Offenders’. Therefore, I have now
extended and renamed our original hypothesis as the Loss-Substitution-By-Stealing
Hypothesis, as follows:
“In response to experiencing (or anticipating) what is
perceived to be an unfair personally
meaningful loss, some individuals, whom we have termed Atypical Theft
Offenders, may carry out acts of theft, by which they cause other persons,
places or institutions to suffer unfair
losses of some sort or other. Such
acts of atypical theft behavior are almost always carried out without the
conscious awareness (on the part of the perpetrator) of the relationship of the
act of stealing to the experienced or anticipated loss.”
CASE
MATERIAL
Case
# 1: Harold, a Holocaust survivor who stole to soothe a 50-year old wound
A
financially successful, now retired gentleman, was apprehended in a drug store
in 1995, and charged with stealing an item worth less than $10.
In our interview, this individual could not offer me any explanation as
to why he had done such a thing. He
did not even need the stolen item! Approximately
an hour after I had concluded a rather extensive history-taking, which included
having the client recount some very painful recollections of his survival during
successive stays at three concentration camps,
I realized that the date of his being
apprehended for stealing, and the date of his release from the concentration
camps, were the same --separated by a period of a half-century.
The
client’s recollection of his release from the concentration camp was dramatic
indeed; he and all the other inmates had been awakened in the middle of the
night and marched by their German guards for over five hours, over country roads
strewn with sharp stones, without the benefit of any footwear to ease their
distress. These poor, barefoot
souls were marched with sore and bleeding feet, without rest. Those who fell and
had difficulty getting up were shot where they had fallen. The remaining
concentration camp prisoners eventually arrived at a border and were told by the
fleeing Germans soldiers that the war was over for them, and that they should
stay where they were and the Red Cross and allied soldiers would be there soon.
Then the soldiers ran away. Red
Cross personnel and allied soldiers arrived a few hours later.
I
inquired whether my client had been thinking of his release from the
concentration camps on the morning that he was apprehended for theft.
He replied in no uncertain terms that he had not!
In fact, he said, he never thought
about those terrible times. And he
did not want to do so now. The
professional reader of this article may well appreciate the symbolically driven,
unconscious dynamics at work in this case when I mention that this man had been
arrested for stealing a package of Dr. Scholl’s foot pads.
In
the day of the theft in 1995 this client’s feet were in fine condition.
Indeed, he had always made sure, since coming to North America and thriving,
that he wore only the most comfortable shoes.
And he could well afford to replace those that became even close to being
worn out! I suggest that this man
represents a classic case of an Atypical Theft Offender.
Case
# 2: Penelope, who shoplifted only on the first day of her menstruation
Penelope
was one of the first theft offenders to alert me to the matter of shoplifting as
a behavioral manifestation of an aspect of her menstrual cycle.
In one of our early sessions she volunteered that she only shoplifted on
the first day of her menstruation, and usually only when that day coincided with
experiencing some at least moderately serious marital disharmony. She and I
thereafter jointly tracked her mood and marital problems as a function of where
she was in her menstrual cycle and her inclinations to shoplift.
She described for me her “pronounced feelings of aloneness and
impending
emptiness” when she would begin menstruating at a time when she was also
experiencing feelings of anger towards, and emotional distance from, her
husband.
Over
the past several years I have noted that some female Atypical Theft Offenders
have been more inclined to shoplift at particular times before or during the
days that they were menstruating. As well, some male and female Atypical Theft
Offenders have apparently reacted by stealing in
response to having not been able to conceive, or having lost a child.
Case
# 3: Margaret, who stole from her employer whenever her father had another bout
with cancer
Over
a period of ten years, as it turned out when she was finally apprehended,
Margaret, who had worked for over 15 years as senior secretary to the frequently
traveling owner of a successful manufacturing company, had intermittently
written forged cheques in her employer’ name for amounts ranging from $50 to
$5000, for a total amount of $65,000. It
was only when she became more aggressive in forging cheques for increasingly
larger amounts over shorter intervals, that she was found out. When we reviewed
her theft behavior with copies of the canceled cheques provided by her employer,
we discovered that her cheque writing endeavors coincided nearly exactly with
those times when her father had again had a setback in regard to his prostate
cancer. The largest, and most
recently cashed, forged cheques were deposited in her account a few days after
her father’s death.
At
no time had Margaret ever related the two events in her conscious mind until we
reviewed the salient events in her life during the period of the previous ten
years.
This
lack of awareness of the connection between their stealing activities and their
lives’ stresses, including and especially what actual or anticipated losses
they were dealing with, is very typical indeed of Atypical Theft Offenders.
FORMULATION
Atypical
Theft Offenders are individuals whose acts of theft are not related to genuine
need or greed; rather, their theft behavior is carried out for psychological as
opposed to either material or monetary motivations.
Indeed,
there appears to be a Theft Offender continuum, ranging from pure ‘Atypical
Theft Offenders’, i.e., who have led exemplary lives up to the point of their
acts of bizarre or nonsensical acts of theft wherein they have taken things that
they may not have wanted, let alone needed, and who experience powerful feelings
of shame, humiliation, and remorse, on the one hand, to, on the other hand,
those persons who have stolen precisely what they wanted when they wanted, for
either their own use or for sale, and who have no sense of remorse or concern
about their theft behavior. I have termed the latter category of offender,
‘Typical Theft Offenders’. And in between there seems to be a large number
of theft offenders with mixed
(Atypical + Typical) Theft Offender qualities.
Incidentally,
those who truly suffer from kleptomania are, in terms of this Theft Offender
continuum, considered to represent, depending upon the particular case in mind,
individuals who may exhibit both Atypical Theft Offender and Typical Theft
Offender qualities, inasmuch as his or her behavior may be rather out of control
and occasionally bizarre, on the one hand, while at the same time, and on the
other hand, the offender may steal without remorse, and may indeed sometimes
take things that are wanted, and some of which may then be sold or given to
‘significant others’.
As
far as Atypical Theft Offenders are concerned,
our studies strongly indicate that when essentially honest persons
shoplift or commit other acts of theft, they do so for one or more of the
following reasons:
·
as a response to what is perceived as
unfair personally meaningful loss, or the anticipation of such
·
as a reaction to stress
·
as a reaction to serious illness, and
in particular cancer;
·
as a regressive, symbolic act
·
as a behavioral manifestation of
conscious, subconscious or unconscious manipulation
and/or
·
as unconscious retribution.
Let
us consider only one of the above points -- that of theft as a reaction to
serious illness. It is clear from our 1983 study, and corroborated by my 1996
study, that serious illness, and in particular cancer, was most likely a dynamic
factor in the bizarre theft behavior of many of the subjects of these studies.
SOME
DATA OF THE 1996 STUDY
In
this brief article let me just refer very briefly to only three of the findings
from the 1996 study, which involved 36 cases (18 men and 18 women).
Table
One
The
Relationship Of Theft Behavior To Much Earlier Life Events (1996 study)
|
Total
number of cases
|
Number
of cases where the theft behavior was likely related to much earlier
(usually childhood) events
|
|
36
|
30
(83.3%)
|
The
case of the Holocaust survivor clearly was included in the 30 cases referred to
in Table 1.
Table
Two
When
‘not having a child’ or ‘not
being able to conceive a child’ or ‘losing a child’
were
evidently precipitating factors in atypical theft behavior (1996 study)
|
Total
number of cases
|
Number
of cases where not having, or not being able to conceive, or losing a
child was a precipitating factor in the theft behavior
|
|
36
|
6
(16.7%) [4
men; 2 women]
|
Table
Three
Cases
where illness was likely a dynamic factor in
the
theft behavior of offenders in the 1996 study
(N=36)
|
#
of cases in which cancer in
subject or ‘significant other’ was likely a dynamic factor
|
#
of cases in which non-cancerous
illness in subject or ‘significant other’ was likely a dynamic
factor
|
Total
# of cases in which any illness of subject or ‘significant other’
was likely a dynamic factor
|
|
4
cases
|
8
cases
|
12
|
|
11.1%
|
22.2%
|
33.3%
|
ASSESSMENT
PROCEDURES
Over the past 17 years of my clinical
involvement with theft offenders, I have developed an intake assessment
procedure that aims to uncover both
current and earlier salient
events that may have impacted upon these individuals, perhaps precipitating
atypical theft behavior. To that end I developed a Theft Offender Questionnaire[vii]
to assist offenders and clinicians to focus their attentions upon possibly
useful data. I then use the
resultant information to direct our next conversations towards locating possible
relationships between the salient events in their lives and their acting out
theft behavior.
The information forthcoming in this
assessment phase is usually essential to providing the court with an
understanding of the offender’s actions, and is central to sentencing issues
as well as to configuring and postulating an effective treatment plan.
I have also developed the Theft
Offender Spectrum[viii],
a 25 item scale that can assist a suitably trained and competent mental health
professional to arrive at an, at least provisional, hypothesis as to whether the
offender being dealt with is more likely to be correctly labeled as an atypical,
typical, or mixed type of theft
offender.
TREATMENT
PROCEDURES
A discussion of treatment procedures
is beyond the scope of this brief article.
Having carried out both individual and group therapy with Atypical Theft
Offenders for many years, I have developed a specific treatment approach that I
have labeled STATO therapy
(Specialized Treatment for Atypical
Theft Offenders). This approach utilizes Redecision[ix]
and Reintojection[x]
therapies as well as a variety of Gestalt and
cognitive techniques and exercises to assist the offenders to resolve the issues
that have been precipitating their acting out behavior.
SUMMATION
Acts of nonsensical or bizarre theft
are frequently carried out by persons whom I have termed Atypical Theft
Offenders. Many of these persons may be misdiagnosed as suffering from
kleptomania, with the result that not only is their behavior misunderstood, but
also they may thereafter be offered less than maximally helpful clinical
treatment and court disposition.
My over 17 years of clinical
investigations, begun when I was on the staff of the forensic service of the
Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, has provided me with the opportunity to assess
hundreds of Atypical Theft Offenders. Our major finding has been that such
criminal behavior, when carried out by generally and genuinely honest
persons, usually results for one or more of a combination of causative
factors, the most prominent of which is perceived
(actual or anticipated) unfair, personally meaningful loss. Other factors,
such as stress, anger, and reactions to not having, or being able to have, or
actually losing a child, have also been uncovered. This brief article has
referred to some of the important findings of my investigations, including
unique assessment and treatment procedures.
REFERENCES
[i]
American Psychiatric Association (1994).
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition,
Washington, D.C., American Psychiatric Association.
[ii]
The word “our” in this context refers to the investigations and
findings carried out by the author and Dr. D. J. Atcheson between 1979 and
1986, while we were both
working on the same clinical team and in the employ of the forensic service
of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto.
[iii]
Cupchik,W, Atcheson, D.J. Shoplifting: An Occasional Crime of the Moral
Majority, Bulletin of the American
Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Vol.11: No. 4, p.343-354, 1983
[iv]
References to “my” findings and investigations, refer to those I have
carried out since leaving the employ of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry
in November of 1986, and which I have conducted from within my private
practice as a registered psychologist in Toronto.
[v]
Cupchik, W. (1996). In Why Honest
People Shoplift Or Commit Other Acts Of Theft: Assessment And Treatment Of
‘Atypical Theft Offenders’, Toronto, Tagami Communications, 1997
[vi]
Cupchik, W., Atcheson,D.J., Shoplifting: An Occasional Crime of the Moral
Majority. In Clinical Criminology:
The Assessment And Treatment Of Criminal Behavior. Edited by Ben-Aron,
M.H., Hucker, S.J., and Webster, C.D., Toronto. Clarke Institute of
Psychiatry/University of Toronto Press, 1985
[vii]
Cupchik, W. (1996) The Theft Offender Questionnaire. In
Why Honest People Shoplift Or
Commit Other Acts Of Theft: Assessment And Treatment Of ‘Atypical Theft
Offenders’, Toronto, Tagami Communications, 1997.
[viii]
Cupchik,W. (1996) The Theft Offender Spectrum.
In Why Honest People Shoplift
Or Commit Other Acts Of Theft: Assessment And Treatment Of ‘Atypical Theft
Offenders’, Toronto, Tagami
Communications, 1997.
[ix]
Goulding, M. M. and R. L.(1979). Changing
Lives Through Redecision Therapy, N.Y., N.Y.: Brunner/Mazel.
[x]
Cupchik, W. (1984). Reintrojection Therapy: A Procedure For Altering
Parental Introjects, Psychotherapy:
Theory, Research, and Practice,
Volume 21, Summer, #2
|
|
Why
Do Some Usually Mature and Honest Adults Over-spend or Even Shoplift,
Especially Around Holidays such as Christmas?
|
|
Originally
written for, and published on the web site of Committment e-zine
The
holidays are coming! The holidays are coming! When our newspapers are bulging
with special advertising supplements, our radios are playing holiday music,
and are promoting gift-giving, then major overspending and even some atypical
shoplifting may occur.
For
the remainder of this article we will focus especially on Christmas and its
pressures/effects upon some usually honest, ethical and reasonable people.
What
if, at holiday time, the real world where we live has some particularly
poignant unpleasantness awaiting some of us? What if, as an example, this is
to be the first Christmas and New Year's without a recently deceased parent or
child. Or, what if one's marriage has disappeared, due either to
separation, divorce or death?
It
is frequently much more difficult to deal with feelings of pain, sadness,
anger, and the emptiness that inevitably accompanies what are considered to be
unfair, personally meaningful losses. Unfortunately, in some cases, the
response to such distress, especially at what is supposed to be a merry and
happy part of the year, is to over-spend or even, in some cases, to shoplift,
as a means of compensating ourselves for what we have lost. When people have
suffered major personally meaningful losses, especially when these losses are
perceived to have been essentially unfair, then overspending and/or even
shoplifting may be avenues that they might find themselves taking; this can be
the case even though these same theft offenders would normally find such
behaviors very offensive and entirely out of the question.
As
an example, consider Mary, a 38 -year old highly successful corporate lawyer,
who was apprehended for shoplifting in the pharmacy near her office, two hours
after her husband had undergone radiation therapy for cancer at the nearly
university hospital. When apprehended, Mary was entirely at a loss to explain
her behavior, which put in jeopardy her reputation, to say nothing of her
approximately $350,000 per annum income. She was shocked by her own actions,
and had not made any connection between her theft behavior and her husband's
deteriorating medical situation.
In
my twenty years of assessing and treating essentially honest women and men who
have stolen, I have come to understand that our unconscious minds are very
active, and can promote what is often experienced, at a conscious level, as
out-of-control conduct. In these instances, even though we know better, we act
out in ways that are not in our best interest. For some persons, this will
mean indulging in overeating, or excess drinking, or overspending. Or, yes, in
some cases, even shoplifting! All in the service of making the pain duller,
and numbing the thoughts and feelings that pertain to the lost person, or job,
or whatever other kind of losses, that swirl around the periphery of our
conscious minds, trying to get our attention.
As
easy as it is to say, and as difficult as it may be for us to do, we all have
to face our losses, and mourn them, and cry and feel the pain, and gradually
get over as much of the pain as we can, and get on with what the future may
bring us. Shoplifting by essentially honest persons often signals undealt-with
distress, usually pertaining to such personal losses.
For
those generally honest persons who may have found themselves shoplifting, I
suggest finding a suitable professional with whom you might discuss and deal
with your responses to those losses that are so very painful to experience and
so difficult to accept.
The
holiday season exacerbates the problem of dealing with losses. The first
annual ‘special days’ (e.g., birthdays, anniversaries, etc...) that we
have to endure without a loved one, are especially distressful. At the holiday
season, making sure to get the caring support of friends and loved ones is
especially important to ease the burden of having to go through such a
poignant period bearing such a loss. So-called ‘anniversary reactions’ are
to be expected, and hopefully they will become less and less severe over time.
*********************************************************************************************
|
Psychologist Dr. Will Cupchik, 