Token gestures: A brief look at ‘sexual trophy collecting’

Back in 2002, I had a little piece published on excessive collecting behaviour in the Guardian newspaper (‘Addicted to hoarding’). In it I wrote:

“I have always been interested in why we have what seems like an innate ability to collect. I would almost go as far as to say that we are ‘natural born hoarders’. Furthermore, there has been surprisingly little research in this area and Freud’s theories on the topic are unfortunately almost empirically untestable. I would also add that for some people, collecting is at the pathological end of the behavioural continuum. There are some that are (for want of a better word) ‘addicted’ to collecting and there are some with obsessive-compulsive disorders who simply cannot throw away anything”.

Since then I’ve published a few articles on the psychology of collecting in this blog and is probably one of the reasons that I have had a few approaches over the last couple months from journalists asking me about the psychology behind various forms of collecting. (In fact, I’ve also been approached to write an academic chapter on the phenomenon too). Two of the most recent media requests included journalists writing articles on why people collect retro video games (which I hope to write about in a future blog) and another on why people collect ‘sexual trophies’.

I have to admit that I am no expert on sexual trophies so I did a little reading on the topic. According to one definition I came across, a sexual trophy is “any item or piece of clothing gained from a sexual encounter as proof of a successful sexual conquest”. To tie in with the release of US comedy I Just Want My Pants Back, MTV conducted a [non-academic] survey and reported that one in three young British people (aged between 18 and 34 years) admitted to owning some sort of sex trophy with one in six of them (16%) claiming they had two or more sex-based trophies (a group that MTV termed ‘Sexual Magpies’).

However, when it comes to the collecting ‘sexual trophies’, I would argue that most academic research that I have come across on the topic relates to more criminal sexual deviance rather than day-to-day sexual encounters. For instance, in the 2010 book Serial Murderers and Their Victims, Dr. Eric Hickey described the case of man – who was a voyeur – from Georgia (US) that used to break into houses and steal women’s underwear. On his eventual arrest they found over 400 pairs of knickers that he had stolen. More disturbing are cases such as this excerpt from a story in the Daily Telegraph. This is arguably more typical of what I perceive to be sexual trophy hunters:

“A company manager and ‘pillar of the community’ has been exposed after 20 years as a serial sex attacker known as the Shoe Rapist. James Lloyd, 49, a long-standing Freemason who took the footwear of his victims as trophies, was finally caught through advances in DNA techniques. Police later found more than 100 pairs of stiletto shoes hidden behind a trap door at the printing works where he was employed… As well as taking their shoes, he often stole jewellery from the women, mainly in their teens and early 20s, between 1983 and 1986” (Daily Telegraph, July 18, 2006).

However, Dr. Hickey’s book describes even worse acts of sexual trophy collecting. He noted that many serial killers are “known for their habits of collecting trophies or souvenirs. Others have collected lingerie, shoes, hats, and other apparel”. A sizeable section of the book concentrates on the types of serial killers that are popular in the media (such as those that commit ‘lust murders‘) and are the subject of many Hollywood films such as the series of films with (my favourite fictional psychopath) Hannibal Lecter. As Hickey notes:

“These are the rapists who enjoy killing and, often, indulging in acts of sadism and perversion. These are the men who have engaged in necrophilia, cannibalism, and the drinking of victims’ blood. Some like to bite their victims; others enjoy trophy collecting – shoes, underwear, and body parts, such as hair clippings, feet, heads, fingers, breasts, and sexual organs…[and] evoke our disgust, horror, and fascination”.

One of the cases discussed is 1950s US serial killer Harvey Glatman (known in the media as ‘The Lonely Hearts Killer’) who used to take photographs of the women he murdered. Citing the work of Dr. Robert Keppel (another expert in serial murder cases and author of Serial Murder: Future Implications for Police Investigations), Dr. Hickey wrote:

“His photos were more than souvenirs, because in Glatman’s mind, they actually carried the power of his need for bondage and control. They showed the women in various poses: sitting up or lying down, hands always bound behind their backs, innocent looks on their faces, but with eyes wide with terror because they had guessed what was to come”.

Other murderers described by Dr. Hickey included a man that liked to surgically remove (and keep) the eyeballs from his sexual victims (most probably 1990s’ serial killer Charles Allbright) and another that skinned his victims and made lampshades, eating utensils, and clothing. In his overview of necrophilic homicide (i.e., those individuals that kill others in order to engage in sexual activity), Hickey also mentions that such necrosadistic murderers often engage in other paraphilias related to necrophilia “including partialism or the desire to collect specific body parts that the offenders finds sexually arousing. This may include feet, hands, hair, and heads, among others”. Hickey also noted that:

“Another important characteristic of these lust killers was the ‘perversion factor’. This subgroup was often prone to carry out bizarre sexual acts. These acts most commonly included necrophilia and trophy collection. Jerry Brudos severed the breasts of some of his victims and made epoxy molds. Brudos, like others, also photographed his victims in various poses, dressed and disrobed. The photos served as trophies and a stimulus to act out again”.

Later in the book, Dr. Hickey examines the case of Jerry Brudos in more detail (please be warned that some of the things written here may offend those of a sensitive nature):

“At an early age, Jerry Brudos developed a particular interest in women’s shoes, especially black, spike-heeled shoes. As he matured, his shoe fetish increasingly provided sexual arousal. At 17, he used a knife to assault a girl and force her to disrobe while he took pictures of her. For his crime he was incarcerated in a mental hospital for 9 months. His therapy uncovered his sexual fantasy for revenge against women, fantasies that included placing kidnapped girls into freezers so he could later arrange their stiff bodies in sexually explicit poses. He was evaluated as possessing a personality disorder but was not considered to be psychotic…He continued to collect women’s undergarments and shoes. Prior to his first murder, he had already assaulted four women and raped one of them. At age 28, Jerry was ready to start killing…He took [his first victim] to his garage, where he smashed her skull with a two-by-four. Before disposing of the body in a nearby river, he severed her left foot and placed it in his freezer. He often would amuse himself by dressing the foot in a spiked-heel shoe. His fantasy for greater sexual pleasure led him…to strangle [another victim] with a postal strap. After killing her, he had sexual intercourse with the corpse, then cut off the right breast and made an epoxy mold of the organ. Before dumping her body in the river, he took pictures of the corpse. Unable to satisfy his sexual fantasies and still in the grasp of violent urges, he found his third victim…After sexually assaulting her, he strangled her in his garage, amputated both breasts, again took pictures, and tossed her body into the river”.

Arguably the most infamous ‘sexual trophy collector’ was 1980s US serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, the so-called ‘Milwaukee Cannibal’. In Dr. Hickey’s account he noted that:

“Restraining Dahmer, the officers looked around the apartment and counted at least 11 skulls (7 of them carefully boiled and cleaned) and a collection of bones, decomposed hands, and genitals. Three of the cleaned skulls had been spray-painted black and silver. These were to be part of the shrine fantasized by Dahmer. A complete skeleton suspended from a shower spigot and three skulls with holes drilled into them were found throughout the apartment…Chemicals, including muriatic acid, ethyl alcohol, chloroform, and formaldehyde, were also discovered, along with several Polaroid photographs of recently dismembered young men. A complete human head sat in the refrigerator”.

Another infamous case from the early 1970s (that I admit I had never heard of until I read Dr. Hickey’s book) was Ed Kemper, a cannibalistic killer who also collected human trophies and keepsakes of his victims. Citing the book Hunting Humans by Dr. Elliot Leyton, it was reported that:

“At the age of 23, Ed started killing again, a task that would last nearly a year and entail eight more victims. He shot, stabbed, and strangled them. All were strangers to him, and all were hitchhikers. He cannibalized at least two of his victims, slicing off parts of their legs and cooking the flesh in a macaroni casserole. He decapitated all of his victims and dissected most of them, saving body parts for sexual pleasure, sometimes storing heads in the refrigerator. Ed collected ‘keepsakes’ including teeth, skin, and hair from the victims. After killing a victim, he often engaged in sex with the corpse, even after it had been decapitated. In his confession Kemper stated five different reasons for his crimes. His themes centered on sexual urges, wanting to possess his victims, trophy hunting, a hatred for his mother, and revenge against an unjust society (Leyton, 1986)”.

The most obvious question related to these depraved acts is why such people do it in the first place. Writing in the Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime, Nicole Mott provides an answer:

“A trophy is in essence a souvenir. In the context of violent behavior or murder, keeping a part of the victim as a trophy represents power over that individual. When the offender keeps this kind of souvenir, it serves as a way to preserve the memory of the victim and the experience of his or her death. The most common trophies for violent offenders are body parts but also include photographs of the crime scene and jewelry or clothing from the victim. Offenders use the trophies as memorabilia, but also to reenact their fantasies. They often masturbate or use the trophies as props in sexual acts. Their exaggerated fear of rejection is quelled in front of inanimate trophies. Ritualistic trophy taking, as is found with serial offenders, acts as a signature. A signature is similar to a modus operandi (a similar act ritualistically performed in virtually all crimes of one offender), yet it is an act that is not necessary to complete the crime”

In one of my previous blogs on the psychology of collecting more generally, I referred to a paper by Dr. Ruth Formanek in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality. She suggested five common motivations for collecting: (i) extension of the self (e.g., acquiring knowledge, or in controlling one’s collection); (ii) social (finding, relating to, and sharing with, like-minded others); (iii) preserving history and creating a sense of continuity; (iv) financial investment; and (v), an addiction or compulsion. She also claimed that the commonality to all motivations to collect was a passion for the particular things collected. Personally, I think that the acquisition of sexual trophies – even in the most deranged individuals – can be placed within this motivational typology in that such individuals clearly have a passion for what they do and I would argue that the behaviour is an extension of the self that to some individuals may be a compulsion or addiction.

Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Branagh, N. (2012). Third of UK owns sex trophy. March 26. Located at: http://www.studentbeans.com/mag/en/sex-relationships/third-of-uk-owns-sex-trophy

Du Clos, B. (1993). Fair Game. New York: St. Martin’s Paperbacks.

Griffiths, M.D. (2002). Addicted to hoarding. The Guardian (Review Section), August 10, p.19.

Formanek, R. (1991). Why they collect: Collectors reveal their motivations. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 6(6), 275-286.

Hickey, E. W. (Ed.). (2003). Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime. London: Sage Publications

Hickey, E. W. (2010). Serial Murderers and Their Victims (Fifth Edition). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Keppel, R. D. (1989). Serial Murder: Future Implications for Police Investigations. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson.

Leyton, E. (1986a). Hunting Humans. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

Leyton, E. (1986b). Compulsive Killers: The Story of Modern Multiple Murder. New York: New York University Press.

Playing with fire: A brief and personal look at ‘survivor guilt’

Football. Love it or hate but you cannot ignore it. For many people, football is a central part of their lives (mine included). That is one of the reasons I carried out research on football fanaticism because I believe there is a tiny minority of fans that are addicted to the football teams they follow (see my previous blog on ‘fanorexia’ for an overview).

Apart from a four-year period in my life (more of which later), football has always been an important part of my leisure time. Like many children I was brought up on a healthy diet of football. In the 1970s, my dad and brother were staunch Liverpool fans (as they were both born there) but I was a Sunderland supporter (and still am). I have supported Sunderland ever since I was six years old when I watched them beat Leeds 1-0 in the 1973 FA Cup final. This was certainly the first match I remember watching and for years after I had lots of flashbacks of seeing captain Bobby Kerr lifting the trophy and manager Bob Stokoe’s run across Wembley at the final whistle.

Despite my almost religious love of football as a child, I didn’t go to a single live football match simply because my family couldn’t afford it. I grew up in Loughborough so the nearest football teams were Leicester City, Nottingham Forest, Notts County and Derby County. My parents couldn’t even afford to travel to the games let alone watch one (and we never had a car until I reached my later teens). At the time (in the 1970s and early 1980s) I could still get my weekly fix of soccer action on Match of the Day (on BBC1) and the Star Soccer match (on ITV).

Throughout my formative years I not only watched football but also played it a lot too. In my junior school I shared the captaincy with one of my best friends at the time but on getting to secondary school I discovered I wasn’t as good as I thought (I only ever managed a regular slot in the second elevens; first team call up only ever came if there were lots of injuries). I devoured football. I used to be one of those very sad individuals who could not only tell you the score of every Wembley cup final since 1923 but could also name all the scorers. This came to great effect when I was 14 and my class at school (3L4 – so called because the class was the third year at secondary school and our form tutor’s room was ‘Laboratory 4’) won the Question of Sport team prize (mostly thinks to my sad but encyclopaedic knowledge of all things sporting). This passion stayed with me until I was 18 years old.

The first live football that I started watching regularly was Bradford City. As a first year undergraduate at the University of Bradford I got a student discount to go and situate myself in the Midland Road Stand at City’s home ground Valley Parade. That was 1985. The year that Bradford went up as the Third Division champions with ex-Leeds United legend Trevor Cherry as manager. After Sunderland, Bradford City became my ‘second team’. The last game of the season was against Lincoln City and it was billed as a ‘celebration’ game as Bradford City were already the Division winners. It was May 11th, I had just finished all my end-of-year university exams, and I was in great spirits. As usual, I attended the match with my best friend Geoff Harvey (now a well respected author of books on both football fans and sports betting). As it was a celebratory occasion we also managed to convince two of our female friends to join us (neither of them had ever been to a live football match before that day).

The day turned out to be a day I will never forget. As the game kicked off, little did we know that 45 minutes later the whole of one of the stands would be up in flames – ‘The Bradford Fire’. For those reading this who have no idea what I am talking about, here is the relevant information (from Wikipedia):

“The Bradford City stadium fire was the worst fire disaster in the history of English football. It occurred during a league match in front of record numbers of spectators, on Saturday, 11 May 1985, killing 56 and injuring at least 265. The Valley Parade stadium, long-established home to Bradford City Football Club had been noted for its antiquated design and facilities, including the wooden roof of the main stand. Warnings had also been given about a major build-up of litter just below the seats. The stand had been officially condemned and was due for demolition. The match against Lincoln City had started in a celebration atmosphere, with the home-team receiving the Football league Third Division trophy trophy. At 3.40 pm, a small fire was reported by TV commentator John Helm, but in less than four minutes, in windy conditions, it had engulfed the whole stand, trapping some people in their seats. In the panic that ensued, fleeing crowds had to break down locked exits to escape. There were, however, many cases of heroism, with more than fifty people receiving police awards or commendations”.

Thankfully, I was in the Midland Road stand (directly opposite to where the fire started). The one thing I still remember to this day was the intense heat inside the stadium. I have never experienced anything like it in my life. Everyone’s faces around me were bright red from the heat of the fire. None of us particularly like to think about death, but I have always thought that the two ways I wouldn’t want to die would be to either burn to death or to drown. As we left the stadium and made our way back to the Halls of Residence (about a 45-minute walk) I grateful to be alive. I knew I would have to ring my parents to let them know I was alright (as they knew I was going to the game). As this was in the era before mobile phones, another memory I have was the long queues outside all the telephone boxes as people wanted to let their loved ones know they were safe. I didn’t manage to get through to my Mum until about 6.15pm. Even by this time, the first deaths had been recorded. It was mid-evening that the horror of the day started to sink in and the next morning as all the Sunday papers’ front pages were about the 50+ deaths.

Over the next few months, I ruminated a lot about the deaths that day. At the end of July 1985, I took a walk to the Valley Parade stadium and broke down in uncontrollable tears. That was the first time I had cried about the tragic events of May 11. When the new season started, I lost all interest in football. I didn’t watch a full match for the next four years. Whenever I thought about football, I thought about the Bradford fire and had flashbacks. In December 1985, I began a long-term relationship with a woman who’s grandad had been burned in the fire. It was around that time that I found out that one of the technicians in our Psychology department (who I had become friendly with) had lost his father in the fire. Although I could go hours without thinking about the fire, when I thought about it I felt psychologocally uneasy. It was hard to put into words. It was much later that I came across the concept of ‘survivor guilt’. The Wikipedia entry notes:

“Survivor guilt (or survivor’s guilt; also called survivor syndrome or survivor’s syndrome) is a mental condition that occurs when a person perceives themselves to have done wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not. It may be found among survivors of combat, natural disasters, epidemics among the friends and family of those who have committed suicide, and in non-mortal situations such as among those whose colleagues are laid off. The experience and manifestation of survivor’s guilt will depend on an individual’s psychological profile. When the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) was published, survivor guilt was removed as a recognized specific diagnosis, and redefined as a significant symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”.

Although this description does not totally match the symptoms and thoughts I had, I do think (in retrospect) I had a mild from of ‘survivor guilt’. I also think that what I suffered was a mild form of PTSD given that PTSD refers to “a group of symptoms, such as disturbing recurring flashbacks, avoidance or numbing of memories of the event, and hyperarousal, continue for more than a month after the occurrence of a traumatic event” (Wikipedia). Thankfully, the cliché that ‘time is a great healer’ is true in my case. During the end of my PhD at the University of Exeter (1989), I began to watch football again and was a regular at St. James Park for Exeter City’s home games. My love of football returned and I began to think less and less about the Bradford Fire.

This is the first time I have ever written this down fully and is a good example of what I would describe as ‘therapeutic writing’ (something I have occasionally written about – see my previous blog on diary writing). I hope that you will forgive me for the lack of empirical data in this particular blog but just writing this all down has helped me feel better about one of the most heartfelt days of my life. Normal service will be resumed next time.

Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Wikipedia (2014). Bradford City stadium fire. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_City_stadium_fire

Wikipedia (2014). Post-traumatic stress disorder. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_traumatic_stress_disorder

Wikipedia (2014). Survivor guilt. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_guilt

Arcade fire: A brief look at pinball addiction

“I guess what started my pinball addiction was how it has become the perfect distraction. I like to drink beer. And go out. And recreate. Pinball is often found in bars here in the San Francisco Bay Area, so grabbing a beer and dropping a few quarters and playing a game with a friend is a great way to kick it. That’s kind of how it started, as something I might do here and there, but it’s grown into a full blown addiction as I’ve discovered more about pinball. It’s a hobby, a sport, and a pastime, but for me, it’s all consuming” (Gene X, December 18, 2013).

“PinballJunky.com is a periodic hobby-blog operated by one guy with over 20 years of unbridled collector’s obsession over anything having to do with the Art, Science, History and Culture of Pinball. Armed with an arsenal of over 30 Pins, our Moderator has built, rebuilt, repaired, restored, demolished and labored with an OCD level of passion over 100’s of pinball machines from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s era. While he has experimented with various EM pins over the years, The Junky is particularly passionate about the SS games of the 90s and present” (from the Pinball Junky website).

As far as I am aware, only one academic paper has ever been published on pinball addiction, and that was a case study that I published in 1992 issue of Psychological Reports. My paper featured the case of a young man (aged 25 years) that I interviewed as part of another study on slot machine gambling (that I published in a 1994 issue of the British Journal of Psychology about the role of cognitive bias and skill in slot machine gambling). During the post-experimental interview, I asked all my participants to complete a questionnaire that included the (1987 revised third edition) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria for pathological gambling. None of the nine items was endorsed but after completing my questionnaire, my participant spontaneously added that if he’d been asked the same questions about his pinball playing and videogame playing he would have answered ‘yes’ to a majority of the questions. On the spur of the moment I changed the word ‘gamble’ in the DSM-III-R criteria to the word ‘play’ and asked him to take that part of the survey again. In short, I asked him if he endorsed any of the following

• Frequent preoccupation with playing or obtaining money to play
• Often plays with larger amounts of money or over a longer period than intended
• Need to play more to achieve the desired excitement
• Restlessness or irritability if unable to play
• Repeatedly returns to win back losses
• Repeated efforts to cut down or stop playing
• Often plays when expected to fulfill social, educational or occupational obligations.
• Has given up some important social, occupational or recreational activity in order to play
• Continues to play despite inability to pay mounting debts, or despite other significant social, occupational, or legal problems that the individual knows to be exacerbated by playing

If a person answers ‘yes’ to four of the above questions, the person was deemed to be an amusement machine ‘addict’. This time, my participant answered ‘yes’ to six out the nine questions, that I interpreted as showing signs of pinball pathology. It was at this point he was interviewed further.

The participant began playing pinball machines (and arcade videogame machines) at school when he was around 14 or 15 years of age. This he did with many of his male peers at the start of the ‘videogame explosion’ (as he put it) in around 1979 to 1980. He became “very good” at pinball playing and felt particularly good when lots of people, both male and female, were watching him and he was playing well. This implied he played mainly for social reasons. However, he also enjoyed playing on his own and, at the time of my study, he predominantly played alone. While playing, he reported that he experienced a ‘high’ – a continuous high (as opposed to an immediate high or ‘rush’ reported by some addicted slot machine gamblers (that I had reported throughout my published studies on adolescent slot machine players in 1990 and 1991) which was especially notable when he “started off with a good ball”, got “free replay”, or experienced something intrinsically motivating to him (e.g., someone watching him play).

Back in 1983, Dr. Sidney Kaplan and Dr. Shirley Kaplan reported in the Journal of Popular Culture, that male pinball players may be attracted by the machine’s sexual graphics. However, my participant reported that he was more attracted by the features within the game and liked the idea that he could master a game, something that attracted him to videogames as well. He went on to say that both pinball machines and videogame machines were very similar because they both (i) score through points, (ii) have no financial reward – unlike a fruit machine, (iii) give the players pleasure from gaining a high score, i.e., an intrinsic reward, (iv) have the chance to gain free replays, and (v) require skill to play well. The reasons he didn’t play slot machines were because (i) its financial rewards were too infrequent, (ii) they are mostly chance-oriented, (iii) there are no points to score, and (iv) there is no free replay feature (except of course if the player won and decided to play again).

At the time I published the paper, it had been argued at various gambling conferences that I attended that “videogames are not as bad as slot machines because the better the player gets, the less money the player spends”. At face value this was correct as some adolescents could make 10 pence last over an hour on a videogame. However, the participant explained to me that he (and others) used to spend “hundreds of pounds” learning to play videogames and pinball machines, and then, when they were proficient at them, they would get bored with the game and spend their money learning how to play a new game on another machine. For this participant, pinball machines were different from videogame playing. Although he had played many different pinball machines, he had a personal favourite which he always returned to because it was the one on which he had his first “major success” (i.e., a very high score).

Back in 1992 I argued that it would be beneficial to adapt the criteria for pathological gambling for use in the monitoring of gaming machine addictions. By using such checklists (which can be administered quickly and easily), I argued it would be possible to record objective measures of incidence of probable amusement-machine addicts (including pinball addiction) and possibly show whether these types of addictions are implicated or act as precursors to more established addictions (e.g., pathological gambling). In 2013, criteria for Internet Gaming Disorder were included in Section 3 of the latest DSM-5 (using many of the criteria outlined above). However, given the complete lack of any other academic paper on pinball addiction, it doesn’t look as though pinball addiction will be appearing in any psychiatric diagnostic manual anytime soon. However, this case and other papers that I wrote on slot machine and video game addiction at the time led to my 1995 paper on technological addictions (that has now become one of my most highly cited papers).

Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

American Psychiatric Association (1987). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd Edition -Revised). Washington D.C. : Author

Griffiths, M.D. (1990). Addiction to fruit machines: A preliminary study among males. Journal of Gambling Studies, 6, 113-126.

Griffiths, M.D. (1991). Fruit machine addiction: Two brief case studies. British Journal of Addiction, 85, 465.

Griffiths, M.D. (1991). Amusement machine playing in childhood and adolescence: A comparative analysis of video games and fruit machines. Journal of Adolescence, 14, 53-73.

Griffiths, M.D. (1991). The psychobiology of the near miss in fruit machine gambling. Journal of Psychology, 125, 347-357.

Griffiths, M.D. (1991). The observational study of adolescent gambling in UK amusement arcades. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 1, 309-320.

Griffiths, M.D. (1992). Pinball wizard: A case study of a pinball addict. Psychological Reports, 71, 160-162.

Griffiths, M.D. (1993). Tolerance in gambling: An objective measure using the psychophysiological analysis of male fruit machine gamblers. Addictive Behaviors, 18, 365-372.

Griffiths, M.D. (1993). Fruit machine addiction in adolescence: A case study. Journal of Gambling Studies, 9, 387-399.

Griffiths, M.D. (1994). The role of cognitive bias and skill in fruit machine gambling. British Journal of Psychology, 85, 351-369.

Griffiths, M.D. (1995). Technological addictions. Clinical Psychology Forum, 76, 14-19.

Kaplan, S. J. (1983). The image of amusement arcades and differences in male and female video game playing. Journal of Popular Culture, 17(1), 93-98.

Kaplan, S., & Kaplan, S. (1981). A research note: Video games, sex, and sex differences. Social Science, 208-212

Kaplan, S., & Kaplan, S. (1983). Video games, sex and sex differences. The Journal of Popular Culture, 17(2), 61-66.

Trance-sexuality: A brief look at sex and stage hypnosis

Regular readers of my blog may remember that my first academically published papers were on hypnosis (as I recounted in a previous blog I did on hypnofetishism). Consequently, I’ve always had a passing interest in stage hypnotism although some of those that I’ve seen sail close to the wind in terms of their ethics. In fact the following online query raised some of the sort of questions I have often asked myself when watching such shows:

“My in-laws recently attended an ‘adults only’ hypnotist show in Las Vegas. The hypnotist selected audience members to be hypnotized. I’m sure you all know the drill here. The selected individuals did all sorts of sexual (or inferred sexual acts) from masturbating a teddy bear to having an orgasm when another sneezes…Is it ethical? Is it a form of abuse if these people were not in full control of their capacities? I would think in this day of lawsuit happy lawyers a participant could easily sue a hypnotist for ‘suggesting’ this type of behavior”

Over the last few years there have been a number of high profile stories about ‘X-rated’ stage hypnotists. For instance, in 2012, Colin Adamson’s “raunchy hypnosis show” was banned for being “too rude” by the University of Kent’s student union after the hypnotist got his participants to simulate sex acts and lap dances on stage. Some of those on stage were made to believe they were having orgasms while others simulated masturbation. One of the women that was hypnotized into believing she had been touched indecently by someone watching the show and was left ”too upset to speak”. Sadaeva president of the University of Kent Feminist Society was “disgusted” and was quoted as saying: “[Adamson] shows a lack of empathy towards rape victims and all women, and a lack of basic human decency – he has no place at a student union”.

One infamous case of problems with someone that participated in stage hypnotism was recounted by Dr. Michael Heap in a 2000 issue of the journal Contemporary Hypnosis (as well as on his own website). Heap was an expert witness for the defendant in a case he calls ‘Norman versus Byrnes’ (Mr. Byrnes was the defendant, the stage hypnotist; Mr. Norman, the plaintiff was the person on stage under hypnosis). Dr. Heap began by briefly reviewing the main issues:

“Mr. Norman’s story is that on Wednesday June 30th 1993, he took part in Mr. Byrnes’s stage hypnosis show at a hotel.  At some point in the show Mr. Byrnes offered to help Mr. Norman give up smoking.  Amongst other things, he gave him a post-hypnotic suggestion that from now on cigarettes would taste foul.  Towards the end of the performance Mr. Byrnes suggested to his volunteers that as they were sitting in their chairs they would feel more and more sexy.  He then hit his microphone repeatedly calling out ’10 times more sexy’, ’20 times more sexy’…..and so on.  Mr. Norman seemed to become carried away; he stood up and made thrusting movements at the chair.  Mr. Byrnes then suggested to the participants that when they went to bed that night they would feel even 50 times more sexy than they did then. Mr. and Mrs. Norman both confirmed that when they went to bed that night, as soon as Mr. Norman laid down on the mattress he started shaking violently and bouncing up and down.  Mr. Norman claimed that he was having sexual intercourse with the mattress and that indeed he did find the mattress sexually attractive.  Thus he continued simulating intercourse with the mattress and the other contents of his bed, with the exception of his wife”.

Mr. Norman had sex with his hotel bedroom furniture for about four hours (1am to 5am). When Mr. Norman stopped at one point to smoke a cigarette he became violently sick. On resuming his furniture sex, Mrs. Norman managed to stop the activity by blowing cigarette smoke into her husband’s face. Over the following days, Mr. Norman’s sexual urges diminished during the day but the uncontrollable urge to have sex with the furniture and other domestic appliances came back each night in the hotel room. Mr. Norman and his wife reported that the objects that became sexually attractive included all the bed’s contents, the hotel ceiling, a variety of ornaments in the hotel room, the room’s armchair, the hotel bath, and a tumble dryer. Dr. Heap then reported:

“On Monday, five days after her husband’s stage hypnosis experience, Mrs. Norman went to see a lawyer; on Wednesday Mr. Norman went to see his doctor.  He was prescribed antidepressants and several days later his doctor ‘performed hypnotherapy on him to remove the post-hypnotic suggestion’ and this appeared to be successful.  However, about three weeks later he was referred to a psychiatrist, Dr. Thomas, with ‘depression and delusions’ and violent behaviour. Dr. Thomas saw Mr. Norman on October 18th…Dr. Thomas ascribed Mr. Norman’s problems to Mr. Byrnes’s failure to take him ‘out of the hypnotic trance’…Things appeared to go quiet, and Mr. Norman did not receive any medication or treatment for these problems until four months later…Mr. Norman continued to present with a bewildering array of mental symptoms variously diagnosed as dissociative state, hypomania, hysteria, Ganser’s syndrome, major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, paranoid psychosis and schizo-affective disorder”.

Mr. Norman’s legal team then secured the services of a consultant psychiatrist Dr. James, who was former official of the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis. Dr. James then made a number of allegations of negligence against Byrnes (e.g., Byrnes didn’t establish what the exact counter-suggestion should have been to dispel the post-hypnotic suggestion). Dr. Heap then claimed:

“When I consider these serious allegations against Mr. Byrnes, I cannot help hearing in my mind the music ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’.  Dr. James casts Mr. Byrnes in the role of an inept would-be wizard whose task, under the stern eye of a properly qualified master wizard, is to discover the best counter-spell or incantation that would lift the evil curse with which he had previously inadvertently bewitched Mr. Norman…This case came to trial in September 1997.  I sat in Court every day…but on the fifth day, long before the defence had opened its case, the trial collapsed.  Mr. Norman’s financial backer withdrew, his legal aid having already been rescinded.  The reason for the latter was as follows: had Mr. Norman won his case, the compensation that he would have received would have been claimed back by the state to offset the considerable welfare and sickness benefits he had received while indisposed.  Thus he would have been financially no better off and legal aid is not granted when such is the case”.

Dr. Heap was under the view that Mr. Norman was “clearly malingering in his claims to have been afflicted with his unusual sexual compulsions”. Heap claimed that there were grounds for considering Norman’s symptoms as a factitious disorder (like Munchausen’s Syndrome).

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Heap, M. (2000). A legal case of a man complaining of an extraordinary sexual disorder following stage hypnosis. Contemporary Hypnosis, 17(3), 143-149.

Heap, M. (2001). Some stories about hypnosis. The Skeptical Intelligencer, 3(4), 29-35

Heap, M. (2014). Some stories about hypnosis. Located at: http://www.mheap.com/hypnosis.html

Pop psychology: A peek inside the mind of Iggy Pop

I have just come back from a two-week holiday in Portugal and managed to catch up with reading a lot of non-academic books. Two of the books I took with me were Paul Trynka’s biography of Iggy Pop (Open Up and Bleed [2007]) and Brett Callwood’s biography of The Stooges, the band in which Iggy Pop first made his name (The Stooges: A Journey Through the Michigan Underworld [2008]). Just before I left to go on holiday I also read Dave Thompson’s book ‪Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell: ‪The Dangerous Glitter of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed (2009). This engrossing reading has been accompanied by me listening to The Stooges almost non-stop for the last month – not just their five studio albums (The Stooges [1969], Fun House [1979], Raw Power [1973], The Weirdness [2007], and Ready To Die [2013]) but loads of official and non-official bootlegs from the 1970-1974 period. In short, it’s my latest music obsession.

Although I say it myself, I have been a bit of an Iggy Pop aficionado for many years. It was through my musical appreciation of both David Bowie and Lou Reed that I found myself enthralled by the music of Iggy Pop. Back in my early 20s, I bought three Iggy Pop albums purely because they were produced by David Bowie (The Idiot [1977], Lust For Life [1977], and Blah Blah Blah [1986]). Thankfully, the albums were great and over time I acquired every studio LP that Iggy has released as a solo artist (and a lot more aside – I hate to think how much money I have spent on the three artists and their respective bands over the years). Unusually, I didn’t get into The Stooges until around 2007 after reading an in-depth article about them in Mojo magazine. Since then I’ve added them to my list of musical obsessions where I have to own every last note they have ever recorded (official and unofficial). When it comes to music I am all-or-nothing. Maybe I’m not that far removed from my musical heroes in that sense. I’m sure my partner would disagree. She says I’m no different to a trainspotter who ticks off lists of numbers.

One thing that connects Pop, Reed and Bowie (in addition to the fact they are all talented egotistical songwriters and performers who got to know each other well in the early 1970s) is their addictions to various drugs (heroin in the case of Pop and Reed, and cocaine in the case of Bowie – although they’ve all had other addictions such as Iggy’s dependence on Quaaludes). This is perhaps not altogether unexpected. As I noted in one of my previous blogs on whether celebrities are more prone to addiction than the general public, I wrote:

“Firstly, when I think about celebrities that have ‘gone off the rails’ and admitted to having addiction problems (Charlie Sheen, Robert Downey Jr, Alec Baldwin) and those that have died from their addiction (Whitney Houston, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse) I would argue that these types of high profile celebrity have the financial means to afford a drug habit like cocaine or heroin. For many in the entertainment business such as being the lead singer in a famous rock band, taking drugs may also be viewed as one of the defining behaviours of the stereotypical ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ lifestyle. In short, it’s almost expected”.

Nowhere is this more exemplified than by Iggy Pop. Not only would Iggy take almost every known drug to excess, it seemed to carry over into every part of his lifestyle. For instance, reading about Iggy’s sexual exploits, there appears to be a lot of evidence that he may have also been addicted to sex (although that’s speculation on my part with the only evidence I have is all the alleged stories in the various biographies of him). Another thing that amazes me about Iggy Pop was that he decided to give up taking drugs in the autumn of 1983 and pretty much stuck to it (again mirroring Lou Reed who also decided to clean up his act and go cold turkey on willpower alone). Spontaneous remission after very heavy drug addictions is rare but Iggy appears to have done it. Maybe Iggy gave up his negative addictions for a more positive addiction – in his case playing live. David Bowie went as far as to say that playing live was an “obsessive” for Iggy. As noted in Paul Trynka’s biography:

“[His touring] was simultaneously impressive and inexplicable. David Bowie used the word’ obsessive’ about Iggy’s compulsion to tour – but there was an internal logic. Jim knew he’d made his best music in the first ten years of his career, and he also believed he’d blown it…but he knew his own excesses or simple lack of psychic stamina were a key reason why the Stooges crashed and burned. Now he had to still prove his stamina, to make up for those weaknesses of three decades ago”.

Iggy Pop is (of course) a stage name. Iggy was born James Newell Osterberg (April 21, 1947). The ‘Iggy’ moniker came from one of the early bands he drummed in (The Iguanas). I mention this because another facet of Iggy Pop’s life that I find psychologically interesting is the many references to ‘Iggy Pop’ being a character created by Jim Osterberg (in much the same way that Bowie created the persona ‘Ziggy Stardust’ – ironically a character that many say is at least partly modeled on Iggy Pop!). Many people that have got to know Jim Osterberg describe him as intelligent, witty, talkative, well read, and excellent social company. Many people that have been in the company of Iggy Pop describe him as sex-crazed, hedonistic, outrageous, a party animal, and a junkie (at least from the late 1960s to the early to mid-1990s). It’s almost as if a real living character was created in which Jim Osterberg could live out an alternative life that he could never do as the person he had become growing up. Iggy Pop became a persona that Jim Osterberg could escape into. When things went horribly wrong (and they often did), it was Iggy’s doing not Osterberg’s. It’s almost as if Osterberg had a kind of multiple personality disorder (now called ‘dissociative identity disorder’ [DID]). One definition notes:

“[Dissociative identity disorder] is a mental disorder on the dissociative spectrum characterized by at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality states that alternately control a person’s behavior, and is accompanied by memory impairment for important information not explained by ordinary forgetfulness…Diagnosis is often difficult as there is considerable comorbidity with other mental disorders”.

I don’t for one minute believe ‘Jim/Iggy’ suffers from DID but a case could possibly made based on the definition above. Some of the things he did on stage in the name of ‘entertainment’ included gross acts of self-mutilation such as stubbing cigarettes out on his naked body, flagellating himself, cutting his chest open with knives and broken glass bottles. He was a sexual exhibitionist and appeared to love showing his penis to the watching audience. On one infamous occasion, he even dry-humped a large teddy bear live on a British children’s television show. (Maybe Iggy is a secret plushophile? Check out the clip on here on YouTube).

In 1975, Iggy was admitted to the Los Angeles Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI) and underwent treatment (including psychoanalysis) under the care of American psychiatrist Dr. Murray Zucker. After he had completely detoxed all the drugs in his body, Iggy was diagnosed with hypomania (a mental affliction also affecting another of my musical heroes, Adam Ant). This condition was described by Iggy’s biographer Paul Trynka:

“Bipolar disorder [is] characterised by episodes of euphoric or overexcited and irrational behaviour, succeeded by depression. Hypomanics are often described as euphoric, charismatic, energetic, prone to grandiosity, hypersexual, and unrealistic in their ambitions – all of which sounded like a checklist of Iggy’s character traits”.

Dr. Zucker later told Paul Trynka that hypomania tends to get worse with age and it hadn’t with Iggy and therefore the diagnosis of a bipolar disorder may have been wrong. Dr. Zucker now wonders whether “the talent, intensity, perceptiveness, and behavioural extremes” of Iggy were who he truly was “and not a disease…that Jim’s behaviour was simply him enjoying the range of his brain, playing with it, exploring different personae, until it got to the point of not knowing what was up and what was down’. In short, Dr. Zucker (who maintained professional contact with Iggy during the 1980s) claimed Iggy was perhaps “someone who went to the brink of madness just to see what it was like”. Dr. Zucker also claimed that Iggy (like many in the entertainment industry) was a narcissist (“excessive for the average individual” but “unsurprising in a singer…this unending emotional neediness for attention, that’s never enough”). In fact, Iggy went on to write the song ‘I Need More‘ (and was also the title of his autobiography) which pretty much sums him up many of his pychological motivations (at least when he was younger).

It’s clear that Iggy has been drug-free and fit for many years now although many would say that all of his best musical work came about when he was jumping from one addiction to another – particularly during the decade from 1968 to 1978. This raises the question as to whether musicians and songwriters are more creative under the influences of psychoactive substances (but I will leave that for another blog – I’ve just begun some research on creativity and substance abuse with some of my Hungarian research colleagues). I’ll leave the last word with Dr. Zucker (who unlike me) had Iggy as a patient:

“I always got the feeling [Iggy] enjoyed his brain so much he would play with it to the point of himself not knowing what was up and what was down. At times, he seemed to have complete control of turning this on and that on, playing with different personas, out-Bowie-ing David Bowie, as a display of the range of his brain. But then at other times you get the feeling he wasn’t in control – he was just bouncing around with it. It wasn’t just lack of discipline, it wasn’t necessarily bipolar, it was God knows what”.

Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Ambrose, J. (2008). Gimme Danger: The Story of Iggy Pop. London: Omnibus Press.

Callwood, B. (2008). The Stooges: A Journey Through the Michigan Underworld. London: Independent Music Press.

Pop, I. & Wehrer, A, (1982). I Need More. New York: Karz-Cohl Publishing.

Thompson, D. (2009). ‪Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell: ‪The Dangerous Glitter of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed. London: Backbeat Books.

Trynka, P. (2007). Open Up and Bleed. London: Sphere.

Wikipedia (2014). Iggy Pop. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iggy_Pop

List watch: A brief look at glazomania

“Real happiness consists in not what we actually accomplish, but what we think we accomplish” (Charles Green Shaw, American abstract artist)

Ever since I can remember I have always been someone that compiled lists. Back in my youth it was lists of my favourite pop groups, film stars, sports stars, etc. I still make loads of lists but these days they are more likely to be long ‘to do’ lists (in fact, I’ve even written articles on getting the most out of ‘to do’ lists and being organized – see ‘Further reading’ below) or writing articles in the form of lists (in fact, I used to write what I called ‘psychol-lists’ for the British Psychological Society’s in-house magazine The Psychologist). When I make lists I feel more productive, and they are often the spurs to get things done (as long as I actually do the things on the list).

Obviously, list making can be an important activity in the organizational skills of many working individuals. Based on my own observations, most people make lists so they (i) don’t forget things, (ii) don’t procrastinate, (iii) feel in control and focused in what they are doing, (iv) can relieve stress, and (v) can cross things off the list and feel a sense of accomplishment. However, for a minority of people, making lists appears to be obsessive and a mental health issue. In short, there may be a fine line between being organized and being neurotic. From my own personal experience, I know that writing lists can be related to perfectionism. But life isn’t perfect and not completing activities on ‘to do’ lists can raise stress and worry levels. Ironically, the only way some people can deal with this is to make even more lists of things to do.

Obsessive list making is sometimes referred to as glazomania (check out the ‘Manias’ page at The Scorpio Tales website). Online dictionaries tend to define glazomania as either “a passion for list making” or “an unusual fascination with making lists”. However, the term ‘glazomania’ doesn’t appear to be used much academically. I did come across one recent paper in Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, by Dr. Urs Staeheli that mentioned it:

“Recently, quite a number of coffee-table books have been published that collect different sorts of everyday lists. Some authors even speak of a ‘glazomania‘ (Cagen 2007) – that is, an uncontrolled urge to produce lists and a fascination with list-making”

However, there was no other information provided. I managed to track down the 2007 reference to Sasha Cagen’s book (To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us). The book includes creative list-making exercises with the aim of helping individuals to “get in touch with their passion for life, inside and out of work, and refocus them on what brings them alive”. Cagen now makes a living on writing and giving workshops on the benefits of list making (one of her major clients being Google)

Although the term ‘glazomania’ is seldom used academically or clinically, obsessive list making is often mentioned as one of the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. As one online admission I came across noted:

“I have OCD, and recently my OCD flares up in the form of compulsive list making. This behavior totally affects my ability to be productive because I am constantly afraid of forgetting something and of spending time doing the wrong thing. Does anyone have any tips on how to break the cycle?”

The Wikipedia entry on obsessive-compulsive personality disorder notes that the main symptoms are “preoccupation with remembering and paying attention to minute details and facts, following rules and regulations, compulsion to make lists and schedules, as well as rigidity/inflexibility of beliefs or showing perfectionism that interferes with task-completion. Symptoms may cause extreme distress and interfere with a person’s occupational and social functioning” (my emphasis)

Psychologically, an argument could be made that obsessive list makers are simply trying to create an illusion of control in otherwise chaotic lives. The reason whyindividuals with OCD make lists compulsively is that they often afraid (in some cases, to the point of being phobic) that they will forget something important (even though research shows they do not have memory problems). These (arguably unnecessary) lists provide a reminder to carry out daily activities (i.e. brushing teeth, making breakfast, etc.). As with other OCD-type behaviours, the action of making a list helps the individual to feel psychologically better (albeit temporarily). The etiological roots may lie in the fact that the sufferer may at some point in their past history have been reprimanded severely, or repeatedly, by others for innocently forgetting things that were important. The OCD Types website adds:

“They never learn that they do not need the list to remember things. People with OCD may also make lists to remember things that may be contaminated to later wash or avoid, which also contributes to the OCD process. List-making can be in writing or verbalized aloud”.

In 2010, the BBC reported an exhibition at the Archives of American Art in Washington featuring lists made by eminent artists (everything from “scribbled on scraps of paper” to the “elaborately illustrated” including lists by Pablo Picasso, Alfred Konrad, Oscar Bluemner, Eerp Saarinen and Harry Bertoia). Bluemner even kept lists of lists. The curator of the exhibition (Liza Kirwin) told the BBC that:

“In trying to give order to his life, [Bluemner] obscures the clarity of the inventory of his work. He’s completely obsessed with this type of record keeping…This very mundane and ubiquitous form of documentation can tell you a great deal about somebody’s personal biography, where they’ve been and where they’re going. People can relate to this form of documentation because so many people are list keepers and organise their lives this way”.

In the same article, the BBC interviewed the US psychoanalyst Dr. Michael Maccoby who claimed that there are various types of list makers. However, there was little detail and the only quote in relation to types of list makers claimed: “The extreme is the obsessive who has to make lists of everything. These are people who have an unconscious fear that everything is going to be out of control if they don’t make a list”. As far as I am aware, there is no published empirical research on personality types and list making although there is some psychological literature showing that list making – as part of time management practices – appears to have some beneficial effects on both student grade point averages and workplace productivity.

Finally, a few months ago, an online article by Dr. Carrie Barron at the Psychology Today website provided a brief summary of why making lists is psychologically good for people. I’m not sure about the empirical basis of her claims but they seem to have reasonable face validity. I’ll leave you with her reasons (her verbatim list of “six great benefits”!). In summary, Barron believes that lists:

• “Provide a positive psychological process whereby questions and confusions can be worked through.
• Foster a capacity to select and prioritize. This is useful for an information-overload situation.
• Separate minutia from what matters, which is good for identity as well as achievement.
• Help determine the steps needed. That which resonates informs direction and plan.
• Combat avoidance. Taking abstract to concrete sets the stage for commitment and action. Especially if you add self-imposed deadlines.
• Organize and contain a sense of inner chaos, which can make your load feel more manageable”.

Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

 

Further reading

 

Barron, C. (2014). How making lists can quell anxiety and breed creativity. Psychology Today, March 9. Located at: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-creativity-cure/201403/how-making-lists-can-quell-anxiety-and-breed-creativity

 

Cagen, S. (2007). To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us. Chicago: Touchstone.

 

Griffiths, M.D. (1995). Psycholo-lists. The Psychologist: Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 8, 240.

 

Griffiths, M.D. (1996). More psycholo-lists. The Psychologist: Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 9, 384.

 

Griffiths, M.D. (2006). Tips on…To do lists. British Medical Journal Careers, 332, 215.

 

Griffiths, M.D. (2008). Tips on…’To do’ lists. Psy-PAG Quarterly, 68, 27-28.

 

O’Brien, J. (2010). The art of list-making. BBC News, March 3. Located at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8537856.stm

 

OCD Types (2014). About obsessive-compulsive disorder. Located at: http://www.ocdtypes.com/unusual-compulsions.php

 

Staeheli, U. (2012). Listing the global: Dis/connectivity beyond representation? Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 13(3), 233-246.

 

Wikipedia (2014). Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive–compulsive_personality_disorder

 

Metal defectives: A brief look at metal eating and acuphagia

In a previous blog I briefly examined pica (an eating behaviour in which individuals eat non-nutritive items or substances such as coal, hair and wood). One thing I was surprised to find out was how many different sub-types of pica there are. For instance, a 2005 review of pica by Dr. L.N. Stiegler in an autism journal listed (in alphabetical order) acuphagia (eating sharp objects), amylophagia (laundry starch), coprophagia (faeces), cautopyreiophagia (burnt matches), foliophagia (leaves, grass), geophagia (sand, clay, dirt), lignophagia (wood, bark, twigs), lithophagia (stones, pebbles), pagophagia (ice, freezer frost), plumbophagia (lead items), tobaccophagia (cigarettes, butts), and trichophagia (hair). Today’s blog examines acuphagia and metal eating (which doesn’t appear to have specific sub-name). Here are a few interesting media stories that caught my eye:

• Case 1: “Serbian pensioner Branko Crnogorac was rushed to hospital after he attempted to eat a bicycle within three days as part of a bet made by friends.The stuntman, who has already consumed 25,000 light bulbs, 12,000 forks and thousands of vinyl records in a glittering 60-year career, was in a severe condition when doctors attended to him. ‘I almost died,’ said Mr Crnogorac. ’Doctors at the same time found two kilograms of assorted ironware in my stomach, including two gold rings. ‘So after 20 years of eating everything, I’ve realised my digestive system is not as strong as it used to be, so I’ve decided to retire.’ Crnogorac’s obsessive object eating began after a friend recommended he eat sand to calm down an acidic stomach ache. From then on Mr Crnogorac resolved to eat any object in sight. Mr Crnogorac has also managed to eat 2,000 spoons and 2,600 plates”.
• Case 2: “Doctors in a coastal town in northwestern Peru have rescued the innards of a 38-year-old man by removing 17 metal objects – among them nails, a watch clasp and a knife – that he ate. Luis Zarate was taken to the regional hospital of Trujillo earlier this week by his family after complaining of sharp stomach pains. Doctors took X-rays of his chest that showed his insides littered with screws. ‘There were 17 strange objects found at the level of his stomach and colon’, said Dr. Julio Acevedo, one of the surgeons who operated on Zarate. The black-and-white scans showed Zarate’s skeleton interlaced with things like bolts, barbed-wire and pens. ‘The objects had caused the stomach to expand’ said Acevedo. Doctors said Zarate was mentally ill but it was not clear why he ate the metal”.
• Case 3: “A 40-year-old Ethiopian man is recovering in hospital after surgeons in Addis Ababa removed 222 metallic objects from his stomach.Gazehegn Debebe was admitted to Tibebu General Hospital last week after complaining of continuous vomiting.After intensive investigation, doctors opened his stomach to find an assortment of 15 cm nails, door keys, hair pins, coins and even watch batteries.Doctors at the hospital say it’s incredible that Gazahegn’s stomach could contain all these objects…‘He must have been eating these objects for at least two years, as the wall of his stomach had thickened to accommodate all the inedible objects’ said Dr Samuel.Some of the nails found were 15 cm in length…It is unclear why Gazehegn was eating nails and other objects, but his family say he has a history of mental illness”.
• Case 4: “47-year old Englishman Allison Johnson [was an] alcoholic burglar with a compulsion to eat silverware, Johnson has had 30 operations to remove strange things from his stomach. In 1992, he had eight forks and the metal sections of a mop head lodged in his body. He has been repeatedly jailed and then released, each time going immediately to a restaurant and ordering lavishly. Unable to pay, he would then tell the owner to call the police, and eat cutlery until they arrived. Johnson’s lawyer said of his client, ‘He finds it hard to eat and obviously has difficulty going to the lavatory”.

After reading these news stories, it got me wondering what academic research had been carried out on people that voluntarily eat metal objects (irrespective of whether the person is mentally ill).One of the earliest papers that I came across was a case study by Dr. K.M. Hambridge and Dr. A. Silverman published in a 1973 issue of the Archives of Disease in Childhood. They described the case of a 2-year-old girl had a 6-month history of pica, that resulted in ‘metal-eating’. She had a poor appetite generally and was diagnosed with a zinc deficiency. When she was one-and-a-half-years old she began to eat small metallic objects (such as keys, the metal trim on carpets, and bits of aluminium foil). She was treated with a dietary zinc supplement and within 3 days, her pica disappeared completely. Papers and other anecdotal evidence from parents demonstrates children eating metallic objects is well documented, although acuphagia in children appears to be very rare (and is potentially fatal). In a 2003 book chapter in the book Child Psychopathology, Dr. L.G. Klinger and colleagues reported that acuphagia has been documented in autistic children, and that this may be possibly due to sensory disturbances.

Acuphagia and metal eating appears to be rarer in adult populations although a number of case studies from around the world have been published over the last decade. For instance, a 2007 paper by Dr. D. Halliday and Dr. F. Iroegbu reported the case of a 22-year old adult Nigerian male (Mr. C.O.) that turned up at hospital complaining of “persistent vomiting after meals, cough, weakness, inability to walk and swelling of the legs and face”. The initial diagnosis was ‘kwashiorkor’ (protein calorie malnutrition) but following an X-ray, the doctors discovered there were metallic objects in his upper abdomen. Following a surgical procedure, a total of 497 metallic objects weighing 1.84 kilograms were found in his stomach (and what was most remarkable was that his stomach was completely in tact). This included 303 two-inch nails, 145 coins, 25 office pins, six razor blades, and 18 sowing needles.Mr. C.O. was referred for psychiatric consultation but denied he had swallowed all the metallic objects (and no-one close to him had ever seen him ingest any metallic objects). Halliday and Iroegbu concluded that in their part of the world, magical arts (i.e., juju) is widely practiced and believed, and that this was the most likely explanation for his illness, triggered by a number of other factors including poverty, isolation, neglect and loneliness.

In 2008, another case was reported in the Indian Journal of Surgery by Dr. P. Kariholu and his colleagues. However, they debated whether their case was acuphagia and/or hyalophagia (the eating of glass materials – a subtype not actually listed in Stiegler’s classification above). In this particular case, a young 20-year old woman presented for treatment with an impacted mass of 18 bangles broken into 55 glass bangle pieces (each measuring 2cm to 7cm) in the stomach as well as few in her small and large bowel. The bangles were successfully removed via surgery.

A short 2007 article in The Medicine Forum by Dr. Saurabh Bansal described the case of a 29-year old male with a history of acuphagia who needed treatment after “accidentally” swallowing a pen. The patient underwent an esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) to remove the pen, and left the hospital six hours after the EGD. Ten days later, the same man returned to the hospital with hematemesis (i.e., vomiting blood). This time he had swallowed a knife and after emergency treatment was sent to the psychiatric facility. Unfortunately no information was provided in relation to the man’s psychiatric assessment.

Most recently, a 2010 paper by Dr. B.T. te Wildt and colleagues in a psychiatric journal reported a case of acuphagia as a disorder of impulse control. They reported the case of a 41-year-old man with intellectual disabilities who required medical treatment after having swallowing around 20 sharp objects. He had also swallowed a glove. The patient claimed that the swallowing of the objects was done to alleviate tension and stress. The authors also wrote that the man’s “aberrant behavior also seemed to serve as a means to exert pressure on psychosocial workers. Other deviations included the pushing of sharp objects under the skin and multiple paraphiliae. As a child, the patient suffered from early psychological and physical traumatization. Both parents were allegedly physically abusive alcoholics”.

Although very few cases of acuphagia have been reported in the medical literature (particularly in adults), most of these suggest that those displaying the symptoms have psychological and/or psychiatric disorders that may be accompanied by some form of learning disability (except – of course – if the behaviour is part of an ‘entertainment’ act).

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Bansal, S. (2007). Acuphagia. The Medicine Forum, 9, Article 23. Available at: http://jdc.jefferson.edu/tmf/vol9/iss1/23

Halliday, D., & Iroegbu, F. (2007). Case report ‘Acuphagia’ – An adult Nigerian who ingested 497 sharp metallic objects. Editorial Advisory Board, 4(2), 54-59.

Hambidge, K.M., & Silverman, A. (1973). Pica with rapid improvement after dietary zinc supplementation. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 48, 567-568.

Kariholu, P. L., Jakareddy, R., Hemanth Kumar, M., Paramesh, K. N., & Pavankumar, N. P. (2008). Pica – A case of acuphagia or hyalophagia?. Indian Journal of Surgery, 70(3), 144-146.

Klinger, L.G., Dawson, G., & Renner, P. (2003). Autistic disorder. In: E.J. Mash & R.A. Barkley (Eds.), Child Psychopathology, 2nd Edition (pp. 409-454). New York: Guilford Press.

Stiegler, L.N. (2005). Understanding pica behavior: A review for clinical and education professionals. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 20(1), 27-38.

te Wildt, B. T., Tettenborn, C., Schneider, U., Ohlmeier, M. D., Zedler, M., Zakhalev, R. & Krueger, M. (2010). Swallowing foreign bodies as an example of impulse control disorder in a patient with intellectual disabilities: a case report. Psychiatry (Edgmont), 7(9), 34

What’s up Doc? A beginner’s guide to Medical Student Syndrome

Most of you reading this will probably be aware of the psychosomatic condition of hypochondria (also known as hypochondriasis) in which individuals have a preoccupying fear of having a serious illness despite appropriate medical evaluations and reassurances that their health is fine. However, what you may not be aware of is there appears to be some empirical evidence that some particular sub-groups of people appear to suffer hypochondria-related disorders relating to the medical conditions they are studying educationally and/or vocationally.

One such condition is ‘Medical Student/s’ Syndrome’ (also referred to by many other names including ‘Medical Students’ Disease’, ‘Medical Student Disorder’, ‘Medical School Syndrome’, ‘Third Year Syndrome’, ‘Second Year Syndrome’ and ‘Intern’s Syndrome’), a frequently reported psychological condition among medical trainees that experience the symptoms of the disease or diseases they are studying. In a review of the relevant literature in a 2004 issue of the Journal of Curriculum Theory, Dr. Brian Hodges (2004) noted that Medical Student Syndrome (MSS) was first reported in the 1960s. A Wikipedia summary of MSS noted that:

“The condition is associated with the fear of contracting the disease in question. Some authors suggested that the condition must be referred to as nosophobia [a specific phobia, an irrational fear of contracting a disease], rather than ‘hypochondriasis’, because the quoted studies show a very low percentage of hypochondriachal character of the condition, and hence the term ‘hypochondriasis’ would have ominous therapeutic and prognostic indications. The reference suggests that the condition is associated with immediate preoccupation with the symptoms in question, leading the student to become unduly aware of various casual psychological and physiological dysfunctions; cases show little correlation with the severity of psychopathology, but rather with accidental factors related to learning and experience”.

Dr. Bernard Baars in his 2001 book In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind writes:

“Suggestible states are very commonplace. Medical students who study frightening diseases for the first time routinely develop vivid delusions of having the ‘disease of the week’ – whatever they are currently studying. This temporary kind of hypochondria is so common that it has acquired a name, ‘medical student syndrome’”.

Dr. Hodges also suggested that in the 1960s:

“[The] phenomenon caused a significant amount of stress for students and was present in approximately 70 to 80 percent of students… papers written in the 1980s and 1990s conceptualized the condition as an illness in the psychiatric spectrum of hypochondriasis…Marcus found that the dream content of year two medical students frequently involved a preoccupation with personal illness. Marcus’s subjects reported many dreams in which they suffered illnesses of the heart, the eyes and the bowels, among others.. [Learning about a disease] creates a mental schema or representation of the illness which includes the label of the illness and the symptoms associated with the condition. Once this representation is formed, symptoms or bodily sensations that the individual is currently experiencing which are consistent with the schema may be noticed, while inconsistent symptoms are ignored”.

In a 1998 paper in The Lancet, Dr. Oliver Howes and Dr. Paul Salkovskis briefly reviewed the literature on MSS and reported the findings of two studies that had examined the condition. The first study claimed that approximately 70% of medical students had “groundless medical fears during their studies” and the second study found that 79% of randomly chosen medical students demonstrated a “history of medical student disease”. However, more interestingly, they also cited various other studies on non-medical students showing that various types of students not studying medicine also had high rates of hypochondria.

A study by Dr. Ingrid Candel and Dr. Harald Merckelbach examined whether the role of thought suppression and fantasy proneness were predictors of MSS complaints in 215 medical students. Summarizing the study in a 2001 issue of The Psychologist, Dr. Fiona Lyddy defined thought suppression as “the habitual tendency to suppress unpleasant thoughts, which can produce counterproductive hyperaccessibility of the worrying information” and that fantasy-prone individuals “often report physical sensations associated with fantasies or thoughts they have engaged in (e.g. if they had the thought that they might have a blood clot after flying, they might report feeling tightness in the leg muscles)”. Candel and Merckelbach hypothesised that those students that scored highly on both thought suppression and fantasy-proneness would be more likely to experience MSS. Just under one-third (30%) of the sample (n=65) reported various MSS complaints with 33 medical students reporting psychiatric, cardiac, pulmonary, and gastrointestinal complaints. The authors found that gender and age were not significant predictors of MSS but as hypothesised, both thought suppression and fantasy proneness strongly predicted MSS complaints (the strongest being fantasy proneness).

A study led by Dr. G. Singh and colleagues and published in a 2004 issue of the journal Medical Education examined whether being at medical school causes health anxiety and worry in British medical students compared to a control group of non-medical students (and hypothesizing that medical students were more likely to report such conditions). A total of 449 medical students and 485 non-medical students across four years of study (first year to fourth year) were surveyed. Health anxiety was assessed using the appropriately named Health Anxiety Questionnaire whereas worry was assessed using the Anxious Thoughts Inventory. Contrary to their hypotheses, no evidence was found that medical students were more health anxious and greater worriers than non-medical students. In fact, the authors reported that health anxiety was significantly lower in medical students in the first year and the fourth year than non-medical students and that worry was significantly lower in the medical students across all years of study. The authors therefore concluded that “medical students are not a cohort of preselected health-anxious people, nor are they ‘worriers’ [and that] medical education at a clinical level [mitigates] health anxiety in the medical student population”.

MSS has also been reported in cognate disciplines to medicine (such as psychology). In 1997, in the journal Teaching of Psychology, Dr. M. Hardy and Dr. L. Calhoun investigated psychological distress and MSS in a group of American undergraduate students studying abnormal psychology. Their research found that students that planned to major in psychology reported more worry about their psychological health than those planning not to major in psychology. Interestingly – but not a surprise to me – students that had previously undergone some kind of psychological treatment were more likely to intend to pursue an advanced degree in counseling or psychotherapy than those that had not received prior psychological treatment. The authors also claimed that the students that learned about various psychological disorders demonstrated (i) decreased anxiety about their own mental health, and (ii) increased likelihood of seeking out mental health services on the university campus for personal psychological distress.

A more 2011 recent paper (also published in Teaching of Psychology) by Dr. M. Deo and Dr. J. Lymburner investigated whether psychology students can suffer Psychology Student Syndrome (PSS) – a direct analogue to MSS. To do this, they looked at the relationship between self-ratings of psychological health and the number of courses that students took in psychopathology. In addition to standard personality tests, the undergraduate students were asked to rate their level of concern about suffering from symptoms of various psychological disorders. However, Deo and Lymburner found no evidence of PSS. However, they did report a positive correlation between neuroticism and psychological health anxiety. As a result of this finding, they recommended that lecturers on psychopathology courses need to be aware that their neurotic students may be at a higher risk for believing they have psychological problems.

Taken as a whole. The results of studies to date appear to be very mixed as to whether students are more prone to suffering hypochondria-like conditions related to the subjects (i.e., medicine, psychology) they are studying. Even if the rates of hypochondria are higher in medical and/or psychology students, it might be that these students seek out such courses because of pre-existing conditions they have or think they have. More research with bigger samples, better control groups, and better control for pre-existing psychological and/or medical problems are warranted as there does appear to be some evidence that such conditions exist even if there may be good explanations as to why.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Baars, Bernard J. (2001). In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind. Oxford University Press US.

Candel, I. & Merckelbach, H. (2003) Fantasy proneness and thought suppression as predictors of the medical student syndrome. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 519–524.

Deo, M. S., & Lymburner, J. A. (2011). Personality traits and psychological health concerns: The search for Psychology Student Syndrome. Teaching of Psychology, 38, 155-157.

Hardy, M.S., & Calhoun, L.G. (1997). Psychological distress and the “medical student syndrome” in abnormal psychology students. Teaching of Psychology, 24, 192-193.

Hodges, B. (2004) Medical student bodies and the pedagogy of self-reflection, self-assessment, and self-regulation. Journal of Curriculum Theory, 20(2), 41-51.

Howes, O.D. & Salkovskis, P.M. (1998). Health anxiety in medical students. The Lancet, 351, 1332.

Hunter, R.C.A, Lohrenz, J.G., & Schwartzman, A.E. (1964). Nosophobia and hypochondriasis in medical students. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 130,147-152.

Lyddy, F. (2001). Medical Student Syndrome. The Psychologist, 16, 602.

Singh, G. (2006). Medical students’ disease: Health anxiety and worry in medical students. Stress and mental health in college students. New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 29-62

Singh, G., Hankins, M., & Weinman, J. A. (2004). Does medical school cause health anxiety and worry in medical students? Medical Education, 38(5), 479-481.

Wikipedia (2013). Medical students’ disease. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_students’_disease

Men of steal: A brief look at the psychology of shoplifting

In previous blogs I have examined activities like shopping as an addiction. One similar such behaviour is shoplifting. I have to admit that from a personal perspective I came from a family where at least two of my siblings were regular shoplifters and were both regularly caught by shop staff members and reported to the police. As a teenager, my brother was a habitual shoplifter. His behaviour was economically motivated at the start (i.e., we came from a very poor and impoverished family and he stole things because he couldn’t afford to buy things that his friends had) but was later carried out to help feed his addiction to slot machines (i.e., he would steal shop items, sell them, and use the money to gamble). This latter behaviour is common among adolescent gamblers and I have written about this in both of my published books on adolescent slot machine addiction as well as in a number of my published papers.

Last week, one of my regular blog readers, forensic psychologist Dr. John C. Brady, sent me a copy of his latest book Why Rich Women Shoplift – When They Have It All. It’s an engrossing and fascinating read (I sat an read it all in one sitting) and there are many references throughout to seeing some forms of shoplifting as an addiction. I will return to this topic in a future blog (along with a look at the related behaviour of kleptomania) but I thought I would use today’s blog to talk about something very specific in Dr. Brady’s book.

One of the many interesting things I read was Brady’s classification of 16 different types of shoplifters with seven underlying psychological dimensions. The classification included those that are (i) impulse driven (The Externalizer; The Compulsive; The Atypical Shoplifter), (ii) psychologically motivated (The Kleptomaniac; The Thrill Seeker; The Trophy Shoplifter; The Binge-Spree Shoplifter; The Equalizer; The Situational Shoplifter), (iii) economically influenced (The Professional; The Impoverished [Economically Disadvantaged] Shoplifter), (iv) age determined (The Provisional/Delinquent Shoplifter), (v) alcohol and substance connected (The Drug or Alcohol Addict), (vi) mentally/medically impaired (The Alzheimer’s Sufferer/Amnesiac; The Chemically/Alcohol Driven Shoplifter), and (vii) no identifiable psychosocial drivers (The Inadvertent/Amateur Shoplifter). Brady acknowledges that the typology is purely descriptive, not exhaustive and was not developed to be mutually exclusive. Here is a brief description of the 16 types:

• The Externalizer: These are people who feel that they are not in control of their lives (“controlled by outside forces that serve as negative psychological drivers, lowering their moral threshold”) and have an external locus of control. Brady argues that shoplifting simply channels to express anger or help legitimize their personal aggression. All of Brady’s rich women that shoplift fit this particular profile.
• The Compulsive: From the descriptor, it is self-evident that this type of shoplifts as a compulsive behaviour and may also engage in other types of addictive behaviour such as gambling addiction and shopping/buying addiction. According to Brady they are generous individuals but do not care about themselves. When they are caught shoplifting they are full of remorse (and only feel good during or just after the shoplifting incident) but simply cannot resist the urge to shoplift.
• The Atypical Shoplifter: This type of shoplifter is based on the work of Dr. Will Cupchik and described in his 2011 book Why Honest People Shoplift or Commit Other Acts of Theft: Assessment and Treatment of ‘Atypical Theft Offenders. Brady describes such people as not shoplifting for any kind of personal economic gains. Such people claim they had no idea why they engaged in shoplifting except to say that it wasn’t economically motivated.
• The Kleptomaniac: Like atypical shoplifters, kleptomaniacs also steal and shoplift for no apparent reason (and do so impulsively). Many people may have the impression that most shoplifters are kleptomaniacs but as Brady is keen to point out, only 5% of shoplifters are kleptomaniacs. Brady claims this category is the most controversial although the classification in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (correctly) classes kleptomania as an impulse-control disorder and the behaviour is not carried out as an expression of anger or vengeance. (Dr. Brady spends a whole chapter in his book explaining why the DSM classification of kleptomania is poor).
• The Thrill Seeker: Brady describes this group of people (typically adolescents) as a “higher risk shoplifter” who shoplift for the intrinsic excitement of carrying out an illegal behaviour. They may also shoplift as part of a dare simultaneously with other shoplifters. Brady claims that shoplifting for thrill seekers gives them a sense of autonomy (and that the goal is “psychological overcompensation” for individuals that may have a history of failure in the lives).
• The Trophy Shoplifter: Brady claims there have been an increasing number of cases of trophy shoplifters reported in the media. Citing Terence Shulman (who also wrote the Foreword for Brady’s book), Brady quotes from Cluttered Lives, Empty Souls – Compulsive Stealing, Spending and Hoarding (Shulman’s 2011 book) and says trophy shoppers “tend to need to have the best of everything: they seek out that perfect object, be it fashion, art, car, etc. – the more special, unique, or rare, the better”. To me, this behaviour appears to be a by-product of being an ardent collector, and Brady does go on to say there is a “direct connection” between a collector and a trophy shoplifter.
• The Binge-Spree Shoplifter: According to Brady, binge-spree shoplifters are typically adolescents (but may carry on as an adult) where the person shoplifts in a short bout of thefts arising from a combination of weak impulses and doing it to impress their peers (i.e., or as Brady terms it “subcultural recognition”). Like binge drinking and binge gambling, the behaviour occurs in short specific bouts followed by appreciable periods of abstinence.
• The Equalizer: This category of shoplifter arose from some of Brady’s own case studies. Some of the shoplifters he interviewed felt that over the course of their lives, many things (both real and perceived) had been taken from them and that shoplifting was “retaliatory justification” for such past events. Brady also described such individuals as going through their lives with “a good-size chip on their shoulders” and who are agitated, edgy and resistant to treatment.
• The Situational Shoplifter: Brady describes the situational shoplifter as an opportunist that steals on the spur of the moment after seeing an item that has some kind of appeal to them. The process itself was described by Brady as “almost unconscious”. In many ways, the motivation is similar to the compulsive shoplifter but the activity is much more likely to be done on a very occasional basis.
• The Professional: Professional shoplifters are very simply those that steal (often expensive “high-end”) items for profit. A number of television shows in the UK have profiled such people and as Brady points out, this type of shoplifter shows no remorse if caught and will often try to resist arrest.
• The Impoverished [Economically Disadvantaged] Shoplifter: Like the professional shoplifter, the motivation to steal is economically motivated but is done out of necessity rather than for profit and/or greed. Items stolen may be basic necessities (food, toiletries, nappies, etc.) and when caught such people may show remorse (however, according to Brady they are hostile towards the “system” that has led to them being economically disadvantaged).
• The Provisional/Delinquent Shoplifter: This type of shoplifter is usually an adolescent delinquent that shoplifts as part of a wider group of antisocial behaviours in their “troubled teens”. There appears to be some crossover with thrill seeking shoplifters and binge-spree shoplifters as there are elements of both hedonism and peer pressure associated with the criminal act. The good news is that many teens appear to mature out of such behaviour.
• The Drug or Alcohol Addict: This type of shoplifter engages in shoplifting behaviour to support their addictive habit (and as such – and as Brady acknowledges – could technically be in the ‘economically influenced’ category of shoplifters. Brady claims they often take high risks and will try to steal as many items as quickly as possible and then run out of the shop. According to Brady, pre-planning is almost non-existent.
• The Alzheimer’s Sufferer/Amnesiac: This group of shoplifters includes those with severe memory problems and who simply walk out of shops without paying simply because they forgot and/or didn’t realize they hadn’t paid. Brady claims that this group of shoplifters is arguably the fastest growing group as we live in a society where the average age of dying is increasing all the time.
• The Chemically/Alcohol Driven Shoplifter: Brady claims that this group of shoplifters is distinct from drug and alcohol addicts because the shoplifting is not economically motivated and occurs because they are in an altered state of awareness (due to the psychoactive effects of the substances ingested). As Brady notes, their “mental state typically involves such symptoms as confusion, psychomotor agitation, memory lapse, disorientation, nervousness, and perceptual disturbance” (especially those high on cocaine or meth). From a public safety perspective, the police claim that it is these individuals that pose the biggest threat.
• The Inadvertent/Amateur Shoplifter: This final category refers to those without any kind of psychological or physiological disorder who simply “forget to pay” for an item. People may not even realize for some considerable time after that they didn’t pay for the item(s) and it is then up to the person’s conscience as to whether they return the “stolen” items.

I think this typology is intuitive and covers almost all the types of shoplifter that I can think of. I say ‘almost’ as my own brother’s late teenage shoplifting behaviour would not be included in any of the 16 types listed here. However, the ‘drug/alcohol addict’ category could be widened to ‘chemical or behavioural addict’ and then he would be able to be included.

Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Brady, J.C. (2013). Why Rich Women Shoplift – When They Have It All. San Jose, CA: Western Psych Press.

Cupchick, W. (1997). Why Honest People Shoplift or Commit Other Acts of Theft: Assessment and Treatment of ‘Atypical Theft Offenders. Toronto: Tagami Communication.

Griffiths, M.D. (1995). Adolescent Gambling. London: Routledge.

Griffiths, M.D. (2002). Gambling and Gaming Addictions in Adolescence. Leicester: British Psychological Society/Blackwells.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Adolescent gambling. In B. Bradford Brown & Mitch Prinstein(Eds.), Encyclopedia of Adolescence (Volume 3) (pp.11-20). San Diego: Academic Press.

Griffiths, M.D. (in press). Gambling and crime. In W.G. Jennings (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment. London: Sage.

Griffiths, M.D. & Sparrow, P. (1996). Funding fruit machine addiction: The hidden crime. Probation Journal, 43, 211-213.

Shulman, T.D. (2011). Cluttered Lives, Empty Souls – Compulsive Stealing, Spending and Hoarding. West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing.

Yeoman, T. & Griffiths, M.D. (1996). Adolescent machine gambling and crime. Journal of Adolescence, 19, 99-104.

Fanable Collector: A personal insight into the psychology of a record-collecting completist

Regular readers of my blog will know that I have described myself as a “music obsessive” and that I am an avid record and CD collector. When I get into a particular band or artist I try to track down every song that artist has ever done – irrespective of whether I actually like the song or not. I have to own every recording. Once I have collected every official recording I then start tracking down unofficially released recordings via bootlegs and fan websites. I have my own books and printed lists (i.e., complete discographies by specific bands and solo artists) that I meticulously tick off with yellow highlighter pen. (In some ways, I am no different to a trainspotter that ticks off train numbers in a book).

I wouldn’t say I am a particularly materialistic person but I love knowing (and feeling) that I have every official recorded output by my favourite musicians. My hobby can sometimes cost me a lot of money (I am a sucker for deluxe box sets) although most of the time I can track down secondhand items and bargains on eBay and Amazon relatively cheaply (plus I have downloaded thousands of bootleg albums for free from the internet). Tracking down an obscure release is as much fun as the listening of the record or CD (i.e., the ‘thrill of the chase’). Almost every record I have bought over the last decade is in mint condition and unplayed (as many records now come with a code to download the record bought as a set of MP3s).

As a record collector, one of the things that make the hobby both fun and (at the same time somewhat) infuriating is the number of different versions of a particular song that can end up being released. As a collector I have an almost compulsive need to own every version of a song that an artist has committed to vinyl, CD, tape or MP3. However, I am grateful that I am not the type of collector that tries to own every physical record/CD released in every country. (My love of The Beatles would mean I would be bankrupt). I only buy releases in other countries if it contains music that is exclusive to that country (e.g., many Japanese CD releases contain one or two tracks that may not be initially released in any other country).

For most artists that I collect from the 1960s to early 1980s, it is fairly easy to collect every officially released song. Artists like The Beatles may have up three to four official versions of a particular song (the single version, the album version, a demo version, a version from another country with a different edit, etc.). With bootleg recordings, the number of versions might escalate to 30 or 40 versions by including live versions, every studio take, etc.). It can become almost endless if you start to collect bootleg recordings of every gig by your favourite artists. (I know this from personal experience).

It was during my avid record buying days in the early 1980s that the ‘completist’ in me started to take hold. Some of you reading this may recall that in 1984, Frankie Goes To Hollywood (FGTH) became only the second band ever to reach the UK No.1 with their first three singles – ‘Relax’, ‘Two Tribes’ and ‘The Power of Love’ (the first band being – not The Beatles, but their Liverpool friends and rivals – Gerry and The Pacemakers). One of the reasons that FGTH got to (and stayed for weeks at) number one was there were thousands of people like me that bought countless different versions of every variation of every single released. For instance, not only did I buy the standard 7”, 12”, cassettes, and picture discs of both ‘Relax’ and ‘Two Tribes’, I bought every new mix that FGTH producer Trevor Horn put out.

Every week, all of the money that I earned from my Saturday job working in Irene’s Pantry would go on buying records from Castle Records in Loughborough. I didn’t care about clothes, sweets, books, etc. All I cared about outside of school was music. Some of my hard earned money went on buying the NME (New Musical Express) every Thursday along with buying other music weeklies if my favourite bands were featured (Melody Maker, Record Mirror, Sounds and Smash Hits to name just a few).

When I got to university to study Psychology at the University of Bradford, my love of music and record buying increased. Not only did I discover other like-minded people but Bradford had a great music scene. One of the first things I did when I got to university was become a journalist for the student magazine (Fleece). Within seven months I was one of the three Fleece editors and I was in control of all the arts and entertainment coverage. The perks of my (non-paid) job was that (a) I got to go to every gig at Bradford University for free, (b) I was sent lots of free records to review for the magazine (all of which I kept and some of which I still have), and (c) I got to see every film for free in return for writing a review. I couldn’t believe my luck.

During this time (1984-1987) my three favourite artists were The Smiths, Depeche Mode, and (my guilty pleasure) Adam Ant. I devoured everything they released (especially The Smiths). As a record collector I not only loved the Smiths music but I loved the record covers, the messages scratched on the vinyl run-out grooves, and Morrissey’s interviews in the music press. It was also during this period that I discovered other bands that later went onto become some of my favourite bands of all time (Propaganda and The Art of Noise being the two that most spring to mind). As a Depeche Mode fan, collecting every track they have ever done has become harder and harder (and more expensive) as they were arguably one of the pioneers of the remix. Although Trevor Horn and the ZTT label took remixing singles to a new level for record collectors, it was Depeche Mode that arguably carried on the baton into the 1990s.

During 1987-1990, my record buying subsided through financial necessity. I was doing my PhD at the University of Exeter and the little money I had went on food, rent, and travel (to see my then girlfriend who lived over 300 miles away). I simply didn’t have the money to buy and collect records the way I had before. Buying singles stopped but I would still buy the occasional album. This was the only period in my life that I didn’t really buy music magazines. (My thinking was that if I didn’t know what was being released I couldn’t feel bad about not buying it).

In the summer of 1990 I landed my first proper job as a Lecturer in Psychology at Plymouth University. For the first time in my life I had a healthy disposable income. My first purchase with my first pay cheque was an expensive turntable and CD player. I also bought loads of CD albums on my growing wish list. What I loved about my hobby was that I could do it simultaneously with my job (i.e., I could listen to my favourite bands at the same time as preparing my lectures or writing my research papers – something that I still do to this day).

When CD singles became popular in the 1990s I became a voracious buyer of music again. Typically bands would release a single across multiple formats with each format containing tracks exclusive to the record, CD and/or cassette. Artists like Oasis and Morrissey (two of my favourites during the 1990s) would release singles in three or four formats (7” vinyl, 10”/12” vinyl, CD single, and cassette single) and I would buy all formats (and to some extent I still do). It was a collector’s paradise but I could afford it. In fact, not only could I afford to buy all the music I wanted, I could buy all the monthly music magazines at the time (Vox, Select, Record Collector, Q, and then a little later Uncut and Mojo), and I could go to gigs and still have money left over.

Since the mid-1990s only one thing has really changed in relation to my music-buying habits and that is there are less and less new bands that I have become a fan of. I still buy lots of new music but I don’t tend to collect the work of contemporary bands. However, the music industry has realized there are huge amounts of money to be made from their back catalogues. I am the type of music buyer that will happily buy a ‘classic’ album again as long as it has an extra disc or two of demo versions, rarities, remixes, and obscure B-sides, that will help me extend and/or complete music collections by the bands I love. Over this year I have already bought box sets by The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Throbbing Gristle, and David Bowie (to name just four). I have become a retro-buyer but I still crave “new” music by my favourite artists. Yes, I love music and it takes up a lot of my life. However, I am not addicted. My obsessive love of music adds to my life rather than detracts from it – and on that criterion alone I will happily be a music collector until the day that I die.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Belk, R.W. (1995). Collecting as luxury consumption: Effects on individuals and households. Journal of Economic Psychology, 16(3), 477-490.

Belk, R.W. (2001). Collecting in a Consumer Society. New York: Routledge.

Moist, K. (2008). “To renew the Old World”: Record collecting as cultural production. Studies in Popular Culture, 31(1), 99-122.

Pearce, S. (1993). Museums, Objects, and Collections. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Pearce, S. (1998). Contemporary Collecting in Britain. London: Sage.

Reynolds, S. (2004). Lost in music: Obsessive music collecting. In E. Weisbard (Ed.), This Is Pop: In Search of the Elusive at Experience Music Project (pp.289-307). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.