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'Pleonexia': A Modern Pathology Of Self, George R. Ingham

Masters Theses

This study is an examination of the compulsion to shop or acquire commodities seen as a culturally and historically distinctive pathology of the modern self. The Greek term 'pleonexia' ('acquisitiveness') is borrowed as a covenient and more accurately descriptive term than the common 'shopaholic'. Pleonexia is seen as a complex, habitual, impulsive behavior which attempts to maintain order and continuity in the sense of self. Pleonexia represents a failure in self­cohesion, an attempt to counter feelings of emptiness created by the fragmentation and objectification of desire in our commodity culture. Such internal functions as regulation of feelings, self-esteem, as well …