From Compulsive Shopping in the US to Preventing HIV/AIDS With Teens in Africa

What does Compulsive Shopping have to do with a trip to Africa to help teens prevent HIV? Quite a bit, as you'll hear. In this show, Dr. Benson, nationally known expert in the study and treatment of compulsive buying disorder, first helps us recognize and address the compulsive shopping patterns that persist long after holiday shopping is finished. She describes the rationalizations to buy, the warning signs, as well as strategies and treatment programs for change. Dr. Benson then invites us into her experience while working as a counselor at Camp Sizanani in the countryside around Johannesburg, South Africa. Camp Sizanani provides a hundred and thirty teens a week-long camp experience that teaches them critical life skills like information about the changes of puberty and HIV/AIDS prevention with traditional camp activities. In the final segment of the show, April Benson shares not only the reactions of the teens but the personal meaning it offered to her, as well as the shopping challenges she experienced while in Africa.