Kleptomania

KLEPTOMANIA (from Greek kleptein to steal), a pathological impulse to steal, coupled with an irresistible urge to carry this desire into execution. This term arose at the beginning of the 19th century in connection with the doctrine of so-called monomanias. Characteristic of the irresistible urge to steal is the suddenness of its appearance, its adaptation to some specific action, extreme intensity, clarity of consciousness, and the absence of psychological inhibitions. Actions committed in such a state are not caused by external motives, but are conditioned by irresistible impulses that are incomprehensible to the patient himself. Despite the awareness that this impulse is absurd, the patient is unable to fight it. Usually, such an urge is accompanied by a mood disturbance of an anxious-dysphoric character and a feeling of satisfaction and relief upon its execution. In general, however, the genesis of kleptomania remains unclear. Although the old literature cites many examples of such a purely impulsive morbid desire for theft, kleptomania must nevertheless be recognized as an extremely rare phenomenon. Usually, one is dealing with professional thieves, predominantly female shoplifters in large department stores, individuals with a so-called psychopathic character prone to hysterical reactions, who commit their crimes entirely independently of morbid disorders of their drives, but who often utilize their well-worn habitual paths of hysterical and similar shifts and their psychiatric knowledge of kleptomania upon detention and arrest. In other cases, individuals who give the impression of kleptomania turn out to be mentally ill. Their crimes either constitute a manifestation of a profound alteration of their entire personality (oligophrenics, progressive paralytics, organics) or are merely a symptom—formally characterized by all the properties of an irresistible impulse—of such illnesses as schizophrenia, psychological changes in epidemic encephalitis, or they are committed in epileptic twilight states with the stereotypically repeating identicality of actions typical of them. Somewhat standing apart are cases of kleptomania in individuals suffering from mood disorders and impulsive urges, especially in women during premenstrual days and during menstruation, as well as in some cases of alcoholic intoxication. There is usually some connection with sexual sensations. The thefts of fetishists should be particularly noted. In evaluating crimes when the question of kleptomania arises, all circumstances of the case must be taken into account, and one must become thoroughly acquainted with the life history and personality structure of the accused. It is necessary to prove that there is not only an urge to take things, but that this urge is of an impulsive nature, that the patient cannot do otherwise, and that the primary direction of interest is not toward the object, but toward the act of theft itself. Of considerable significance is the discrepancy between the fact of the theft and the social and material standing of the person under investigation.