Individuals With Compulsive Hoarding

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

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

Hoarding ranges from mild to sever (Mayo Clinic). A very severe case of the hoarding syndrome is classified as severe compulsive hoarding (SCH) and can be sub-type with other conditions(later life depression), similar to the hoarding syndrome (OCD). The SCH can be defined as "a behavioral syndrome typically defined as the excessive acquisition of and inability or unwillingness to discard seemingly useless items, causing significant distress or functional impairment, and resulting in living and/or work spaces that are unusable for their intended purposes" (Mackin, Arean, Delucchi, & Matthews, 2011).

In the United States, at least one million people are affected from hoarding. Hoarding first occurred when the collyers brothers were buried alive thus increase the fascination and anxiety during the 1930s to today (Herring 2011, p. 159). On March 21, 1947, Homer Collyer’s body was found “in a sitting position with his head on his knees. His brother’s, Langley Collyer’s body was found trapped in one of his own booby trap 10 feet away from Homer body. Their house “was packed with junk, [for example] newspapers, tin cans, magazines, umbrellas, old stoves, pipes, books, and much more.” In addition, only small tunnels were the only pathway through each room (Frost and Steketee 2010, p. 2). The Collyer’s brother’s house also contained eleven pianos, parts of a Model T Ford “discarded furniture, old ice boxes, baby carriages, animal bones, and old clothing …” (Penzel 2000, p. 246).

Hoarding is clinical syndrome that affects millions of people across the United States. This disorder can have devastating consequences not only for the individual struggling with this condition but also to those close to them and the community. Clutter in the homes of people with hoarding problems is extremely disorganized resulting in unhealthy and hazardous living conditions. Individuals with compulsive hoarding problems show lack of awareness of the severity of their behavior. They deny the problem, resist help that is offered to them, and fail to follow through with treatments.

According to the DSM-5, the compulsive behaviors are defined as, “Repetitive behaviors or mental acts performed in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly. The behaviors are not a result of the direct physiologic effects of a substance or a general medical condition. The behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event or situation. However, these behaviors or mental acts either are not connected in a way that could realistically neutralize or prevent whatever they are meant to address or they are clearly excessive.” Some examples would be hoarding, arranging objects, checking on things such as locks, touching/tapping objects, confessing/seeking reassurance, cleaning/washing, counting/repeating actions a certain number of times or until it "feels right", and list making.

The obsessive compulsive disorder that a hoarder has causes them to hold onto each object in their home as if it is a precious commodity. This is because they have developed an emotional attachment to it all. So when it comes time to throw things away, expect some resistance to occur.

According to the psychologist Christian Jarrett, who wrote the article, “Why do we collect things?” in November of 2017, some of the reasons can be because of love, anxiety, or desire. An explanation for collecting is that unloved children learn to seek comfort in accumulating belongings; another is that collecting is motivated by existential anxieties- the collection, becomes an extension of our identity, lives on, even though we do

“Stuff, stuff, I am surrounded by stuff.”(line 1) We look around and all we see are belongings that we might not even use or need. Although we don’t acknowledge it, keeping ties and papers from ten years ago is a characteristic of hoarding. There is just a little hoarder inside all of us. It is part of human nature. The emotional value that we give to objects play the biggest role when deciding to keep or get rid of something. We collect and save some items because it helps us remember the past or a person that is not longer among the living. However, some people become obsessed with the idea of collecting. This obsession eventually turns into a disorder. Memories, sentimental value, laziness, and procrastination are the main reasons why

Everyone has possessions that aren’t used on an everyday basis, most of these possessions wind up stored in plastic tubs to later be donated, sold, or thrown away. Although, if you’re like my grandmother than this is easier said than done. When I was younger I had a room at my grandmother’s house filled with Barbies, a doll house, and a plastic kitchen set with fake food. However, while my sister and I were running an unrealistic restaurant in our play room we were completely unaware of a real problem outside of our play room. I didn’t become aware of the problem until I was seven when a plastic tub, filled with possessions that would never be taken

Up until recently, hoarding has been classified as a subtype of obsessive compulsive disorder. However, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 )has now included a separate diagnostic entry for hoarding. Hoarding Disorder affects anywhere from 3-6% of the general population (Allan, et. al. 2015). Hoarding is defined as “the acquisition and inability to let go of a large number of possessions, resulting in clutter that precludes the use of living spaces for their intended purposes” (Chong, et. al. 2014). In addition to being associated with obsessive compulsive disorder, hoarding disorder has been linked to all three dimensions of depression (Allan, et. al. 2015). This disorder has been shown to have a large impact

Previously hoarding behaviours were included in the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) category (Murphy, 2014 p.21), but it is now presented as its own disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM 5). Research determined that hoarding should be its own category due its diagnosis characteristics and individual treatment. “Hoarding has been defined as the excessive collection and retention of things or animals to the point that they interfere with daily function (Textbook Source)”. While one individual may only extremely collect one item or animal, another individual may collect multiple things. Hoarding starts when individuals begin to have a difficulty time getting rid of certain possessions and

Some of the symptoms of Jenny’s condition was that she first kept a messy desk at school, in which her teachers would complain about. She then began hiding her toys from her father and thus, became very emotionally attached to them. After she was put on medication for her ADHD, she was having troubles making simple decisions such as what to wear for the day, and had extreme troubles with throwing away boxes, in which she justified that “she knew they would come in handy for something one day” (34). Jenny began making excuses like this for other irrational hoarding behaviors, such as keeping the original packaging for her toys because, “she knew that an item would typically sell at a higher price if it were in the original packaging” (34). She had anxiety when she thought about losing these types of items, and even had an emotional breakdown when her mother threw away all of her toilet paper rolls. Once she became engaged, she began to become obsessed with wedding planning, which then turned her office into a mess. Even after she had kids, she continued “collecting things that she believed were important,” refusing to throw away anything, which only took over their whole house. She would even constantly buy items off Ebay or Amazon to hoard. All of these dynamic symptoms combined, described hoarding disorder, identified within the book, which is “excessive acquisition and difficultying discarding items, which results in extreme clutter in the living environment.” This is

Hoarding - when we have the desire to hold on to things, we want to create some space for those things so we can use them later on in our lives. Many people have this fear of throwing things which they think may be useful for them in the future. There are numerous examples of people in the self storage industry of renting a storage space which they can use to collect items which they cannot store in their homes anymore. In most families, hoarding can cause a real problem because it creates an actual reduction in the living space. When we make use of self storage facilities, we can clear that space in our homes and at the same time retain those items.

Compulsive Hoarding disorder: “Hoarding disorder is characterized by the persistent difficulty to discard or part with possessions, regardless of the value others may attribute to these possessions and is associated with significant functional impairment and distress. This is in reference to hoarding of items in the absence of pets (American Psychiatric Association, 2013 & Park,