Hoarding Disorders: A Case Study

People with hoarding behavior also may be suffering from a variety of other disorders. Many hoarders have problems with anxiety, separation anxiety, and attachment disorder (HelpGuide, 2010). Someone with separation anxiety and attachment disorder feels afraid to be apart from a certain person or object or is fearful of being alone. People with these attachment disorders or other attachment problems have difficulty connecting to others and

Hoarding is not currently considered an illness on its own right. Compulsive hoarding has been treated as symptom or subtype of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (Cluttergone).

Hoarding has gained increased attention in recent years due to recent media television shows depicting the circumstances hoarders may live in. It can be difficult to determine when a person crosses from a simple over collecting behavior into a hoarding behavior. “Hoarding is a debilitating disorder characterized by the acquisition of a large volume of possessions that clutter living areas to such a degree that living spaces cannot be used of their intended purpose (Frost, Kim, Steketee, 2011).” Many people who tend to have hoarding behaviors are unaware of the severity of their actions and feel they are living in normal conditions. As Frank et al. (2014) states, “it is general agreed that when a person’s collecting affects his or her environment in such a way that causes danger to him or herself or others, intervention is necessary.” Although there is much research on adults with hoarding behaviors, there is limited research on the effects of hoarding among the elderly population. Hoarding behaviors among elderly adults can be seen as a danger to one’s health over time has it can harm their physical health, safety and overall well-being.

Between five million and 14 million people in the U.S. are compulsive hoarders. This recent and surprising finding is causing researchers to believe compulsive hoarding is more prevalent that they once thought. (Jabr) Some researchers might even contend that, that estimate is too low, due to the majority of hoarding cases go unrecognised and left untreated. Before the 1990’s, little to none was know about hoarding. There little record of hoarding prior to the twentieth century. (Penzel) Prehistorically, it was a way to save supplies and survive. The early Catholic Church viewed it as sinful. Hoarding was first mentioned in literature in one of Dante’s epic poems as well as other dramas. It slowly gained popularity throughout the nineteenth

Up to 5% of the world’s population displays some sign of clinic hoarding. Hoarding involves the compulsive acquisition and accumulation of objects, animals, and trash and other debris. The hoarder, who often has another mental illness such as depression, is unable or unwilling to discard items, frequently resulting in health and safety hazards to those who reside in or visit the dwelling (Hurd, 2015). Hoarding can affect many aspects of one’s life causing severe problems and can begin as early as adolescent years continuing through elderly life.

For mom, I reframed the word “hoarding” to collecting. Collecting is a work that doesn’t have a negative connotation.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), is a condition characterized by pervasive worry. It takes the form of undue distress about a variety of everyday things beyond the scope of more specific anxieties and phobias (Goldberg, 2017). Anxious adult hoarder is someone who can live in an unhealthy and dangerous environment, collecting stuffs that aren’t valuable or important, and living with broken appliances instead of getting them fixed (Mayoclinic, 2017). General anxiety disorder in a pediatric patient and anxiety associated with an adult hoarder are different in many ways such as hoarding, adult hoarders would rather cope with malfunctioning systems instead of being in a safe environment like everyone else and continue to collect and keeping everything

Whether people some people have a hoarding compulsion or simply collect too much stuff in a land of much abundance, we at RestorePros Remediation can help lift the burden from off your shoulders. Perhaps, you know of someone that just has trouble getting and keeping things organized. If you do, then just call us, and help will be dispatched to your side quickly.

This is a topic I was also considering writing a post on. Compulsive hoarding is a public health issue that is relatively stigmatized. As seen in the video, symptoms include a large amount of clutter in individuals's space, difficulty getting rid of things, impulsively buying or getting things to take home, as well as feeling embarrassed to let others see the home and refusing to let others in to help clean. Hoarding behaviors can begin as early as the teenage years but the average person seeking treatment in in their 50's ( Bratiotis,Otte, Steketee, Muroff, & Frost, 2009).

I. Hoarding is a disorder that causes someone to feel the need to keep everything that may come into his or her possession. A. Hoarding is the difficulty one may face when letting go of certain objects and possessions, regardless of their true significance (Neziroglu). 1. Hoarders tend to compulsively buy and collect items when a majority of the time the item has no apparent value to the person (Neziroglu). a. Once a hoarder begins to obtain a maximum amount of items, they are unable to store their belongings properly, which eventually leads to a disorganized and clustered home (Frost).

Research into being a child of a hoarder is a field which much is still under-researched. And continuing focus with the same questions as some were not answered in relation to children but adults. These research questions are, with the primary one being; What are the effects of hoarding on children? And the secondary or follow up questions being; What do these effects do to their needs? How can these needs be supported? And what are the gaps in the current literature?

OCRD is another category of disorders in the DSM-5 that the neurodiversity framework may not be suitable for. OCRD are characterized by intrusive and recurring thoughts that compel the individual to perform a repetitive behaviour, in order to reduce the distress caused by the thoughts (Flett et al., 2017). Abnormalities in brain structure in individuals with OCRD include greater activation in the frontal lobes and the basal ganglia. Abnormalities in neurotransmitters are also seen in certain OCRDs such as hoarding disorder, in which there is excess norepinephrine and serotonin in the brain (Flett et al., 2017). While the brain structure in individuals with OCRD deviate from the norm, fitting one of the characteristics of the neurodiversity framework, OCRD causes significant distress because individuals have difficulty continuing with their daily activities when they experience the compulsions. A change in environment is not enough for individuals with OCRD to return to normal functioning, characterizing neurological abnormities in OCRDs as dysfunctional, and not the positive neurodiversity of mere natural variation without a detrimental capacity.

B. When hoarding is extreme, family members and/or friends should refer an individual to a clinician. From there a clinician should consider a diagnosis of OCD.

It never dawned on me that children could be hoarders. This is a interesting topic. I never knew that hoarding was linked to other disorders. Do you think that hoarding in children is a behavior that is learned? Hoarding is well known in adults. Maybe one or both of Jill’s parents could be hoarders and she is following their behavior. I agree with you that cognitive behavioral therapy is the best type of intervention for hoarding. Helping Jill now at a young age will prevent her from being a hoarder in the future especially when she becomes an adult. Jill’s parents should be involved in her therapy. Her parent’s involvement will them to understand Jill’s disorder and also teach them the skills to help Jill get better. Habit reversal training

Hoarding is defined as the acquirement of, and inability to discard worthless items even though they appear to have no value. Hoarding behaviors can occur in a variety of psychiatric disorders and in the normal population, but are most commonly found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Those people who report compulsive hoarding as their primary type of OCD, who experience significant distress or functional impairment from their hoarding, and who also have symptoms of indecisiveness, procrastination, and avoidance, are classified as having compulsive hoarding syndrome (www.ocfoundation.com). An estimated 700,000 to 1.4 million people in the United States are thought to have compulsive hoarding syndrome.