2022 Volume 59 Issue 2 Pages 17-29
A case study of a female offender who started shoplifting in her late fifties is analyzed. The woman did not shoplift for economic reasons. Moreover, her shoplifting was not classified as kleptomania based on DSM-5 criteria, but as addictive-compulsive stealing, a concept presented by Shulman (2004). She could resist her impulses but failed to resist addictive, compulsive urges to steal objects, lived under tension and felt pleasure after rather than during shoplifting. Her shoplifting was a means of acting out anger and making life fair. When she was approaching her late adulthood, she began to confront the eighth stage of crisis; integrity vs. despair in Erikson’s psychosocial development stages. She looked back on her life and felt that her life had been obstructed by external factors instead of having a feeling of satisfaction. Shoplifting was a temporary diversion from these feelings. She did not look directly at her crimes and felt shame at her public arrest. It was considered necessary to intervene in her mental condition to deter her from reoffending. It is suggested that retelling her acceptable life-story through narrative therapy would maintain the stability of her mental state.
