High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Kleptomania is the inability to refrain from the urge to steal items for reasons other than personal use or financial gain. First described in 1816, kleptomania is presently classified in psychiatry as an impulse control disorder. Alternatively, some of the main characteristics of the disorder, which consist of recurring intrusion feelings, an inability to resist the urge to steal, and a release of pressure following the theft, suggest that kleptomania could be an obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorder, although this is disputed.