April Lane Benson, PhD, is a nationally known psychologist who specializes in the treatment of compulsive buying. She is the co-founder of the Center for the Study of Anorexia and Bulimia, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, both in New York. She’s been in private practice in New York City for over 30 years.

I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self (Aronson, 2000), Dr. Benson’s edited book, is a multidisciplinary approach to the problem of compulsive buying. It includes contributions from the fields of sociology, consumer behavior, marketing, community education, psychology, and psychiatry. Her recent book, To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop (Trumpeter, 2008), offers a comprehensive program for stopping overshopping. Dr. Benson has also written articles and chapters for professional books and magazines.

Dr. Benson and her associates offer individual treatment and group coaching, both in person and on the telephone, and train therapists who want to learn to work with overshoppers. Stopping Overshopping, LLC maintains an active and informative website. Each month, people from almost 70 different countries visit the site: www.shopaholicnomore.com

Dr. Benson has appeared widely in the media, most recently on the “PBS Nightly Business News”, “Good Morning America”, the “Today Show”, the CBS Evening News, “The Bank of Mom and Dad”, “The Secret Lives of Women”, and “My Strange Addiction.” Quoted in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Toronto Star, she has also been referenced in Time, Money, Kiplinger Personal Finance, Ladies’ Home Journal, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Redbook, Marie Claire, and a variety of internet publications. She speaks to both professional and non-professional audiences.