KLEPTOMANIA. - Irresistible impulse to steal, linked to mental illness. It can sometimes appear in obsessive psychosis (v.), through the drive of the fixed idea that irresistibly lodges itself in the mind, subjugating the course of thought and binding the will (obsessive c.); it is more frequent in senile dementia, paralytic dementia (v.), hysteria (v.), manic excitement (demential c.).

C. unfolds through a succession of moments: the obsessive idea of the theft, growing to the point of an anguished state; an inner struggle to resist the obsessive impulse; the commission of the theft which, by its characteristics (illogical, useless, sudden) and by the social and moral standing of the subject, demonstrates the defect of the will to which it is linked. The act is followed by immediate inner satisfaction at the discharge of the obsessive state. From c. must be distinguished the theft of the moral insane, who steals in obedience to a morbid instinct of ethical perversion.

The vitiated deliberation of consent removes from the kleptomaniac all legal and moral responsibility.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: E. Tanzi-E. Lugaro, Trattato delle malattie mentali, I, pp. 403-404, Milan 1923; G. Moglie, Manuale di psichiatria, Rome 1946, pp. 106.

@incollection{ec3_cleptomania, author = {De, Ninno Giuseppe}, title = {Cleptomanía}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1859}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/cleptomania} }

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Kleptomania

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