Medical Portal

According to the researchers from Stanford University (USA), antidepressants do not affect people suffering from kleptomania. For psychiatrists this news was not unexpected - it is known for a long time, that kleptomania is stable to any treatment.
«There are no simple methods of kleptomania treatment. In many cases even the psychotherapy has no effect. Desire to steal something is so obsessive, that some patients continue to steal even when they are revealed», - comments psychiatrist Norman Sussman (New York University, the USA).
Kleptomaniacs usually steal cheap unnecessary things. Larceny is not planned beforehand, and there are no financial motives.
Last research was “blind” and random, but participated only 17 persons. As the research was small, authors do not call to refuse antidepressants completely. «I met people which were cured by different methods, sat in prison, got divorced, but nothing helped them to cope with kleptomania. But, when he started to take antidepressants, the need to make theft really disappeared. It is difficult to believe, that it only placebo effect. Probably, different patients had different biological basis for their kleptomania. Most likely, the effect depends on a doze. We do not know, that happens inside the brain actually», concludes Lorrin Koran, participant of the research.