A grounded theory study of existential psychotherapists’ experiences of working with clients with shopping addiction

This study is a response to the growing global phenomenon of shopping addiction and the psychological, emotional, financial, and societal problems it arguably creates. It addresses an identified lack of theoretical and practice-based insights and knowledge to support therapists to work effectively with shopping addiction, particularly in the field of existential-phenomenological psychotherapy.
The study reports on how participating therapists described their ways of working with clients with shopping addiction, why they worked in these ways, and the outcomes that were reportedly created. I used a constructivist grounded theory methodology (Charmaz, 2006, 2008, 2010) embedded in an interpretivist epistemology. Eight experienced therapists who worked with clients with shopping addiction participated in semi-structured interviews, each lasting one hour. The interviews were then transcribed and analysed.
Five main categories emerged from the data analysis, within which lie thirteen sub-categories. Analysis revealed that participants used ways of working that align with so-called "common factors", the principal elements of therapy that traverse modalities and, according to research, account for much of the improvement in clients (Lambert, 1992; Hubble et al., 2003). Analysis also yielded some idiosyncratic ways of working that are specific to participants’ reported experiences of working with clients with shopping addiction.
This research contributes new theory and insights to the fields of therapy with clients with shopping addiction and existential-phenomenological psychotherapy. The study highlights the complex interplay between a shopping addiction phenomenon that stays hidden in therapy and the neoliberal hegemony in which both client and therapist permanently live. Participants suggest that their approaches to working with clients with shopping addiction yield some positive outcomes, although more direct research with clients themselves is required to investigate client experiences of the therapy and of recovery in more depth.
The first outcome from this research is a co-constructed map of the social process that is involved in working psychotherapeutically with clients with shopping addiction, as constructed by myself and the participants. The second outcome is a middle-range theory that can support therapists in their work with this phenomenon.