Psychologist says big spenders face hidden costs
Today, after the gifts are unwrapped and you think of the bills about to come due, ask yourself this question: Is your holiday spending hangover a seasonal thing, or do you have a year-round shopping problem?
The analogy comes courtesy of Dr. Joseph Ciarrocchi, a clinical psychologist teaching in Loyola College's Pastoral Counseling Center. An expert in addictions, he says anyone can wake up with a hangover, but not everyone is an alcoholic.
In fact, Dr. Ciarrocchi says, this time of year offers protective coloration for the compulsive overspender, whose out-of-control habits blend in with the seasonal frenzy of shopping.
"You know how drinkers say New Year's Eve is for the amateurs?" he asks. "Well, that's how compulsive shoppers feel about the Christmas season."
Dr. Ciarrocchi prefers not to enter the debate about whether shopping is truly an addiction, like alcoholism or drug addiction. While acknowledging that compulsive shopping, like gambling, has "no biological reinforcement" and may not be a disease, he notes it still is painful and troubling for those afflicted.
And the financial consequences are only one part of it, he points out. The compulsive shopper also may damage relationships. Progress at work can be impeded, because the compulsive shopper may spend too much time daydreaming about the next shopping trip.
Dr. Ciarrocchi has several strategies for the compulsive spender: Make it difficult to shop by cutting up credit cards or handing them to a trusted friend. If in debt, seek out Consumer Credit, a group that helps the over-extended set up budgets. Finally, there is a 12-step program for spenders, Debtors Anonymous. How is this for a rave review? "Dear Dimitry, What a genius work of art, Steven Spielberg."
The work in question is "The Crying Violin," a bronze sculpture by Dimitry Gerrman that was presented to the renowned director last month when he received the Elie Wiesel Holocaust Remembrance Award. The evocative sculpture, which depicts a violin horribly smashed and with a barbed wire running through it, so captured the hearts of the award officials that Mr. Gerrman has been commissioned to create copies for previous winners.
The sculptor, 35, was born in Russia and moved to Baltimore in 1990. As one who lost family members in World War II, Mr. Gerrman, who struggles a bit with his new language, says the sculpture expresses emotions that he finds difficult to put into words.
"I was trying to find the language a long time," said Mr. Gerrman. "The violin is like a symbol of a soul. A violin can cry."
Mr. Gerrman's apartment is filled with works in various stages of progress -- figure studies on the wall, photographs of models, chunks of raw material and finished pieces. And, on the VCR, there are tapes of last month's State of Israel Bonds dinner in New York, where Mr. Spielberg was honored for his award-winning movie, "Schindler's List."
"It's heartbreaking," Mr. Spielberg told Mr. Gerrman upon receiving the sculpture. Mr. Gerrman responded, "I made it with an open heart."
Jean Marbella