![]() ![]() ![]() The final criterion for kleptomania requires clinicians to exclude that ‘stealing is not better accounted for by conduct disorder, a manic episode, or antisocial personality disorder’. Patients are usually secretive and may not be consciously aware of their motive at the time of their assessments. As far as the diagnostic criterion that ‘the stealing is not committed to express anger or vengeance’ goes, an assessor may need several sessions to understand the motive(s) for the individual’s behaviour(s). It is easy to mis- or overdiagnose kleptomania because the majority of the condition’s diagnostic criteria (recurrent failure to resist impulses to steal increasing sense of tension immediately before committing the theft and pleasure, gratification, or relief at the time of committing the theft) are based on self-reporting and it is difficult to test its reliability. Kleptomania retains its position under the same diagnostic category in DSM-IV-TR.( 2) The DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for kleptomania are listed in Table I. ![]() Interestingly, the term was omitted altogether from the DSM-II before being reintroduced in the DSM-III under the category of ‘impulse control disorder not otherwise specified’. The term ‘klopemania’ changed to ‘kleptomanie’ and described by the French physicians Marc and Esquirol as “persons having irresistible and involuntary urges to steal.”( 1) Subsequently, kleptomania was included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I) in 1962 as a supplementary term rather than a formal diagnosis. The tendency to steal is permanent but the thieving tendency triumphs, it subjugates the will.”( 1) He termed this condition as ‘klopemania’ or a ‘stealing insanity’. Kleptomania is described in both the medical and legal literatures for centuries, dating back to the early 19th century when the Swiss physician Mathey who worked with the “insane” wrote of “a unique madness characterised by the tendency to steal without motive and without necessity. Not surprisingly, it is commonly used by the defence counsel for mitigation of theft and related offences, especially for repeat theft offenders. Kleptomania is an enigmatic condition in which crime (theft) forms a part of its diagnostic criteria. ![]()
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