«Kleptomania can be defined as a mental disorder manifested by a tendency to take objects that do not belong to us“, Explains Doctor Nicolas Neveux. Psychiatrist-psychotherapist in Paris, in TCC and TIP, this specialist is also the author of an information site on mental health. This psychiatrist agreed to answer PasseportSanté’s questions about kleptomania.

Thus, Nicolas Neveux explains that “very often, this comes from a desire to experience the excitement linked to this forbidden act“. It is not a condition strictly speaking, but rather a symptom which can sometimes reveal other underlying conditions, in particular depression or bipolar disorder. 

Kleptomania can be defined as “an irrepressible drive to appropriate objects without having an economic motive or the real need for these objects“, Estimates the website indexsanté, which constitutes the health directory of Quebec. Indeed, kleptomania cannot therefore be considered as a theft: because it is, therefore, neither an act of delinquency, nor linked to an antisocial personality profile.

«Kleptomania is defined as a tendency to take objects that do not belong to us“, Sums up the Parisian psychiatrist and psychotherapist Nicolas Neveux, author of the site e-psychiatrie.fr. It is therefore an irrepressible drive to want to appropriate things. Moreover, very often, the kleptomaniac will not make any use of the objects he has grabbed. The kleptomaniac is, above all, motivated by the desire to experience the moment of excitement that accompanies his act.

«Most of the time, the kleptomaniac steals inexpensive items because for him the value of the stolen item is irrelevant“, Insists the Quebec health index site, before specifying:”what drives the kleptomaniac is the gesture itself“. Nicolas Neveux also indicates it: kleptomania is a tendency to take objects, and not to steal.

«Indeed, explains the Parisian psychiatrist, people, at the time of doing this act, are not aware of the theft, or in any case, their primary will is not to steal, nor to appropriate an object.“Even if on a criminal level this act can in fact be assimilated to theft, which fundamentally differentiates kleptomania from theft, in the process, it is the intention:”THEthe intention is not to monopolize the object as such, but it is, most of the time, to feel the emotions of excitement related to the transgression, related to the fact of doing the thing«.

The act of the kleptomaniac

This can be impulsive or organized. Impulsivity as such, in fact, is not a differential element.

A fine example of kleptomania is featured in the comic Tintin and the secret of the unicorn. In this album, a gentleman, a retired civil servant, steals everyone’s wallets, and in particular Dupond / t. This typical case of kleptomania is very well described by Hergé. The gentleman in question, therefore, does not take anything from the wallets, does not steal the money: he is content to put them away neatly in a library, even putting a name on each of its owners. Also, when taken, it nicely renders these wallets: “Swe did not aim to appropriate the object as such, insists Dr. Neveux, but it was the will to live the excitement.«

Types of stolen objects

Any type of item can be stolen, but most of the time, these are items that the kleptomaniac is not even going to use. Often, the objects are thus found completely packed. It can also be items that are completely unnecessary for them, or that they collect in incredible numbers.

In most cases, these are items that can be stolen from a pocket. But not always: an example of a case was described in the United States where people walked into a store, picked up a television and simply went out, greeting the vigil: these were people who were satisfied to see themselves smarter than the others, they performed this act really with their faces uncovered. Some do it more in secret, it all depends on what motivates them in terms of emotions.

Very often, the kleptomaniac is in denial, and does not ask the question too much. These people are so overcome with emotion that for them, emotion justifies behavior. They will say: “It’s stronger than me, it’s automatic, it’s not me who decides but it’s the emotion.In fact, the realization, for a person, of his state of kleptomaniac, is often concomitant with an arrest.

Very often, it is therefore the will to experience this excitement at the time of the act that drives the kleptomaniac. Sometimes it can be something else, like “the desire to be smarter than people, a bit like a conjurer, to succeed in taking the wallet or the object without being caught ”, Nicolas Neveux also specifies.

So there can be several motivations, but in fact, what is characteristic of kleptomania is that it is not motivated by a profit, it is not a villainous act. “Kleptomania is truly emotional, adds Dr. Neveux, the intention is not possession.For him, this act is comparable to pathological gambling, when people are excited. It is also the transgression of a prohibition.

There may also be a taste for risk in the kleptomaniac, but this is not systematic, it is however often an element found in people with kleptomania. But on the other hand, others are not at all sensitive to it, or it is really the very impulsive side and a strong desire, an impulse which exceeds them, without further elaboration.

In fact, several types of emotions can motivate the kleptomaniac:

• excitement;
• pleasure ;
• the pride of feeling smarter than the other, or rather pride.

«The notion of cause, in psychiatry, does not make too much sense, finally recalls Doctor Neveux. If we say that a person has been traumatized one day and has become a kleptomaniac, is that the cause? Or is it a manifestation? It is difficult to decide.“This psychiatrist prefers to say that”kleptomania is an entity that is seen in the context of certain other pathologies“. For the Canadian site indexsanté, moreover, “kleptomania is often linked to a significant inner discomfort, or even to previous suffering or injuries«.

Neurological causes

In addition, Nicolas Neveux insists: it can be a question of causes which are not psychiatric, but neurological. Indeed, some people who have brain lesions: these are the ones that will cause kleptomaniac behavior in these patients. If this is quite rare, however, it is necessary to check for this kind of neurological cause.

Psychiatric causes

In addition, it can also be psychiatric causes: it can thus be seen in bipolar disorders, or in connection with certain addictive disorders, and then very often personality disorders, in particular psychopathic, narcissistic, sometimes avoiding, in particular, or even borderline, these are the personality disorders that most provide this manifestation.

«There can be reactions to life events, but there aren’t always things like this. In many cases, specifies Nicolas Neveux, there is no need for trauma, people have a fragility, and it decompensates at one point or another, but you cannot say that there is a cause.There is no generality, it is this which makes the particularity of kleptomania.

Kleptomania is not easy to detect: people don’t go to treatment for it, or at least not often. Kleptomania is not seen as a pathology as such, but often more as a symptom of something else: for example, it can be a sign of an underlying pathology.

«Often, this is a behavior that can either be isolated or part of a larger pathology.“, Considers Nicolas Neveux, before adding:”But I don’t think we can say it’s a pathology as such«.

It is possible to define the main signs of kleptomania in this way:

• the fact that the person takes the object which does not belong to him, with the perception after the fact that it is a theft;
• the fact that this act is guided by a dimension of search for emotions and not for gain. 

In particular, kleptomania can be a symptom of bipolar disorder, or other personality disorders.

It is possible to cure kleptomania, with regard to its psychiatric causes. For neurological causes, these will be more the responsibility of the neurologist. In this kind of situation, Dr. Neveux considers that “la cognitive-behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy seem to be the therapies of choice, on these behaviors«.

Interpersonal therapy

In kleptomania, there is a dimension of interpersonal relationship, that is to say that the person does this act in relation to the fact that it places him in a position of strength. “If we help that person normalize relationships and interact in a way that is empowering but other than this, kleptomania will no longer be necessary.“, Explains the Parisian psychiatrist-psychotherapist. Interpersonal therapy (IPT) can therefore teach the person to manage their emotions in a way other than through this act. The IPT will then help the person to regulate his interpersonal functioning, that is to say the way in which he enters into interaction.

In the case of kleptomania, it is often about people who are devalued in the bond and who artificially need to put themselves in a situation of superiority. It is therefore a need for esteem that will be at stake, and by doing this act, these people gain the ascendancy and put themselves in a position of value: indeed, they then think they are smarter than the other, who fails to protect his property.

Interpersonal therapy will help the person relate to others in a way that is not dysfunctional, which is not a kleptomaniac mode. The therapist will therefore allow the person to bring into play other needs, other expectations, to correctly indicate his need, to correctly identify the interlocutor, among others. Often, for example, in cases of kleptomania, people who have underlying depression are in an isolation setting, and indeed interpersonal therapy is very effective in that regard.

Behavioral and cognitive therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) will also allow the person to find different outlets for the dysfunctional cognitions which induce him, which tell him for example “steal this object”, and to be able to challenge these dysfunctional cognitions.

CBT will approach the situation understanding that in kleptomania there is an injunction with dysfunctional cognition. Therapy will help the person to regain their free will and decide whether or not they find it rationally appropriate to take this object or not.

The therapist will therefore teach his patient not to fall under the influence of an emotional injunction. The person will recover his faculty to be able to free himself from the emotional influence and will be able to decide in conscience what he considers good to do or not, he will manage to acquire the adapted behavior. The fact, in particular, that the person considers that the gesture of kleptomania is stronger than it is an element which is disputed during the therapy, but these people, at the time, are really convinced that this gesture is stronger than they. The therapy will make them realize that they may be able to control the behavior.

These two types of therapies therefore seem interesting in this case. Especially since in addition, compared to the underlying disorder, IPT and CBT have been robustly demonstrated to be effective in depression or bipolar disorder, for example. And indeed, the pathologies concerned by kleptomania are diseases well treated by these two types of psychotherapy, TIP and TCC, which are brief therapies.

A possible drug treatment will depend on the presence or absence of an underlying pathology. If there is no pathology, there is no reason to initiate drug treatment. “As kleptomania is more of a symptom, we rarely seek to treat it directly, but rather seek to treat the underlying cause.“, Adds Nicolas Neveux. 

Each case is a special case

The duration of this therapy can last from a few months to two years, depending on the underlying disorder, but also depending on the diligence that the person will put in doing the exercises, to move forward. In addition, it all also depends on what we are going “find under the first coat of varnish“, Insists Dr. Neveux. For example, “if we treat someone with a kleptomaniac, that we realize that this person is bipolar, and that this bipolar person has had a trauma of sexual abuse in childhood, the therapy will be all the more lengthened«.

«And psychiatry, concludes Nicolas Neveux, these are only special cases. The same thing will not naturally give the same result in different people. The same event as such is not necessarily going to generate the same reactions.«