Do You Want To Develop A Specialty That’s Very Much In Demand, Especially Now?
2006 statistics identified 5.8% of the US population as compulsive buyers. 2008 stats suggest the percentage may be as much as 8.9%.
Each year, visitors from over 100 countries and all 50 states seek out our website.
The population of compulsive buyers is very much underserved. Few therapists have specialized training in this area.
We won’t share your e-mail address with any other organization. Period.
Learn from a pioneer in the field, with over 15 years experience working primarily with compulsive buyers.
April Benson, Ph.D., editor of I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self, creator of the Stopping Overshopping Program, and author of To Buy or Not To Buy: Why We Overshop and How To Stop, is offering a 12 session teletraining for qualified mental health professionals interested in learning to work with compulsive buyers.
“I have known April Benson since 2005 and have been impressed with her pioneering work in the field of compulsive shopping and spending. I read her book “I Shop Therefore I Am” and completed her teletraining in early 2007. It was very valuable and gave me more understanding and confidence to work with clients who suffer from compulsive shopping and spending.”
“I am seeing my practice grow and am seeing results with my clients. Dr. Benson has been gracious in helping to promote me and answer any questions I may have along the way. I can’t recommend her program highly enough.”
Terrence Daryl Shulman, JD, LMSW, ACSW, CAC, CPC
Founder/Director, The Shulman Center for Compulsive Theft & Spending, Author of “Bought Out & $pent! Recovery from Compulsive $hopping & $pending” (2008)
During the 75 minute weekly training, we follow two or three compulsive buyers from the intake process through the entire Stopping Overshopping Program and read additional clinical and theoretical material. Each therapist in the group will either work the program in To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop with an overshopping client or work the program and explore his or her own buying behavior.
During the first month of the training, therapists learn to help clients:
- Discover why they overshop and how it all began
- Identify their shopping triggers
- Look closely at what their habit’s costing them
- Explore their relationship with saving money
- Calculate the true cost of their credit card debt
- Record and evaluate all their expenditures
Later on in the training, you’ll learn to help clients
- Find out what they’re really shopping for—and how to get that
- Focus in on their underlying needs, goals, and values
- Practice shopping without overshopping
- Get control of catalog, TV, Internet, and brick-and-mortar venues
- Practice resisting social pressure
- Develop media literacy
And before the training ends, you learn to help clients
- Recruit and engage their heart, mind, body, and soul
- Engage in a dialogue with their shopping demons
- Look at the relationship between their values, goals, and expenditures
- Create a realistic, nurturing spending plan
- Negotiate lapses and prevent relapse
- Plan for upcoming high risk situations
- Cultivate the acquisition of true wealth
Therapists who successfully complete the training will have the option to be listed on the website as therapists who have trained with Dr. Benson.
“Dr. Benson is an outstanding contributor to a vast new field, helping a population of suffering people among us.
She has helped me both professionally and personally, and I highly recommend her course to therapists who wish to expand their practices.”
Penelope J. Hooks, M.D.
Houston, TX
“I recently completed April Benson’s training program on Stopping Overshopping. The program offers a step by step process for treating clients with issues of Overshopping. It is a very thorough training for clinicians providing both educational and professional support. Dr. Benson has substantively examined addictive shopping, spending, and buying and now has extended training to clinicians on this subject. I can highly recommend this learning opportunity.”
Linda M. Smith, PhD, LMFT
Tallahassee, FL
