Friday, June 17, 2011

The Psychology of Hoarding

This morning I'm sharing information about an informative graphic that explains "The Psychology of Hoarding." This information includes the characteristics of hoarders, stats such as 75% of hoarders engage in excessive buying. As a professional organizer with many years of having the privilege of working with hoarders and their families, I've seen the challenges created by the financial and psychological ramifications of excessive shopping and acquiring. There is also the excessive acquiring of free items that this information notes as happening 50% of the time. We also explore the causes of hoarding and the anatomy of a hoarding house.

A very telling statistic states that by age 6, nearly 70% of children collect or store things. It's when the collecting turns to hoarding that the psychological issues of that persons life have changed, whether it's from a situational issue, genetic predisposition and/or a learned behavior. Collecting and hoarding are two very different reactions and behaviors in a persons' life. A collection can be collected over time, proudly cared for and can be on display. This is not the case when someone is hoarding items. There is a collection of seemingly useless items of limited or no value.

There is also statistical data on animal hoarding, where the person/s might not even be aware that they are harming the animals they hoard.

Some of the common personality traits of a hoarder are: neuroticism, anxiety, depression, self-consciousness, indecisiveness, perfectionism, vulnerability and impulsiveness. The treatments suggested are cognitive behavioral therapy with a 70% responsiveness, anti-depressants with mixed results and exposure and response prevention (ERP) with poor results.

At the end of this graphic, there are resources included. One of my favorite resource sites for hoarding and OCD information is the OCD Foundation.

Please check out this link for full information: http://images.psychologydegree.net.s3.amazonaws.com/hoarding.jpg

(This information was provided by http://www.pscyhologydegree.net/"> Psychology Degree)