When Possessions Rule Your Life

by: Julia M. Klein

Not until my mother died last year, at 82, did I realize how much she had saved. Her attic, closets and drawers overflowed with Playbills and travel brochures; size two designer dresses from the 1960s; broken appliances; baby furniture; expense receipts and stock annual reports; scrapbooks and photo albums; magazines and newspaper clippings; and every letter, greeting card and announcement she had ever received. It was an embarrassment of riches—and of junk. My exasperation was tempered by a sudden realization: I was hoarding identical emblems of my past, from Playbills and newspaper clippings to ancient letters from almost-forgotten lovers.

So it was with both interest and trepidation that I picked up Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee’s new book, Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things. To my relief, I discovered that my mother and I were rank amateurs compared with the pseudonymous subjects of this book, who live among clutter so overwhelming that they scarcely have room to walk, or eat, or sleep. Before treatment, Irene mixed empty boxes, expired coupons and old newspapers with photographs of her children, important documents, even cash. Pamela tried to take care of 200 cats, filling her house with excrement. Ralph stockpiled rusty, broken objects and stacked moldy newspapers so high that they threatened to crush him.

Frost, professor of psychology at Smith College, and Steketee, professor and dean of the School of Social Work at Boston University, have been studying hoarding for nearly two decades and have developed a cognitive-behavioral approach to helping hard-case hoarders. But their book, with its insight into the magic and meaning of ordinary objects, speaks to the hoarder in all of us. I asked Frost to elaborate on some of their findings. (Read an excerpt from Stuff.)

Q. How did you first become interested in hoarding?

A. My interest began with a simple question from a student. We were discussing obsessive-compulsive disorder, and the student asked, “Why are there no studies of hoarding?” I couldn’t answer. So we placed an ad in the local newspaper looking for a “pack rat” to interview. We got more than 100 phone calls. I was hooked.

Behind the Piles: A Look At Why People Hoard

By: Paul Raeburn

The new book Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things looks at the nature of hoarders, and the reasons why some people hoard. Co-author and professor of psychology Randy Frost describes his work, and explains why changing a hoarder's behavior is difficult..." More

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things

Review By PETER D. KRAMER

Working with a patient he calls Debra, a compulsive hoarder, the psychologist Randy O. Frost tried a simple experiment. Frost proposed sending Debra a postcard, blank but for the name and address. Debra’s assignment was to throw it away.

Days later, Debra complained that she had not had enough time with the card. She described the stamp and the postmark. When she finally let go, she pictured the card’s position in the trash. Later, she confessed she had cheated by writing down everything about the card she could remember and then saving the notes.

In “Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things,” Frost, a professor at Smith College, and Gail Steketee, a professor and dean of the school of social work at Boston University, invite us graciously into territory that might otherwise make us squirm. They have spent nearly 20 years working with hoarders, sometimes in settings where tunnels lead through trash and roaches roam freely. Frost and Steketee introduce collectors who acquire through shopping, Dumpster diving and stealing. The resulting assemblages encompass broken machines and living things (cats and dogs, mostly).

People justify hoarding as curating and recycling, deeming odd objects beautiful and useful. Sometimes they act as if history were at stake. Andy Warhol, “straddling the border between eccentricity and pathology,” the authors write, would periodically sweep everything — cash, artwork, apple cores — off his desk and into a cardboard box. He stored hundreds of these “time capsules.”..." More

Released: April 2010

By: Prof. Randy Frost Ph.D. (Author), Prof. Gail Steketee Ph.D. (Author)

What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper that’s ever come into his home? What compulsions drive a woman like Irene, whose hoarding cost her her marriage? Or Ralph, whose imagined uses for castoff items like leaky old buckets almost lost him his house? Or Jerry and Alvin, wealthy twin bachelors who filled up matching luxury apartments with countless pieces of fine art, not even leaving themselves room to sleep?

Randy Frost and Gail Steketee were the first to study hoarding when they began their work a decade ago; they expected to find a few sufferers but ended up treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of others. Now they explore the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies in the vein of Oliver Sacks.With vivid portraits that show us the traits by which you can identify a hoarder—piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders “churn” but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage—Frost and Steketee explain the causes and outline the often ineffective treatments for the disorder.They also illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us. Whether we’re savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, none of us is free of the impulses that drive hoarders to the extremes in which they live.

For the six million sufferers, their relatives and friends, and all the rest of us with complicated relationships to our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us.

Pre-order via Amazon

Causes of Hoarding

By: Randy Frost, PhD / Gail Steketee, Phd

Welcome to the IOCDF Hoarding Center

Hoarding has been a hidden disorder for many years. Before the early 1990’s, there was little research on hoarding. Since then, however, interest has increased dramatically among research scientists and clinicians. Recent media coverage of hoarding has also increase awareness and interest among sufferers, family members, and human service personnel who often deal with the problem. The IOCDF Hoarding Center is designed to provide the most up-to-date and accurate information about hoarding and its treatment. The Center has four goals:

• Educate the general public about hoarding.
• Facilitate education and training of human service personnel including mental health, social services, public health and housing as well as police and fire officials.
• Support research into the causes of and effective treatments for hoarding.
• Improve access to resources for those with hoarding disorder and their families, as well as clinicians and service personnel.
• Advocate and lobby for public policy change as it affects people who hoard, their families and community members...." More
  

Refining the diagnostic boundaries of compulsive hoarding: A critical review

By: Alberto Pertusa , Randy O. Frost, Miguel A. Fullana, Jack Samuels, Gail Steketee, David Tolin, Sanjaya Saxena, James F. Leckman, David Mataix-Cols

Abstract:
Like most human behaviors, saving and collecting possessions can range from totally normal and adaptive to excessive or pathological. Hoarding, or compulsive hoarding, are some of the more commonly used terms to refer to this excessive form of collectionism. Hoarding is highly prevalent and, when severe, it is associated with substantial functional disability and represents a great burden for the sufferers, their families, and society in general. It is generally considered difficult to treat. Hoarding can occur in the context of a variety of neurological and psychiatric conditions. Although it has frequently been considered a symptom (or symptom dimension) of obsessive–compulsive disorder, and is listed as one of the diagnostic criteria for obsessive– compulsive personality disorder, its diagnostic boundaries are still a matter of debate. Recent data suggest that compulsive hoarding can also be a standalone problem. Growing evidence from epidemiological, phenomenological, neurobiological, and treatment studies suggests that compulsive hoarding may be best classified as a discrete disorder with its own diagnostic criteria..." More

A Q&A with Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee, Authors of Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things

Q: What is hoarding, and how does it differ from collecting?

A: Two behaviors characterize hoarding: acquiring too many possessions and difficulty in getting rid of them when they are no longer useful or needed. When these behaviors lead to the kind of clutter and disorganization that disrupts or threatens a person's health or safety, or they lead to significant distress, then hoarding becomes a disorder. Simply collecting or owning lots of things does not qualify as hoarding.

A major feature of hoarding is the large amount of disorganized clutter that creates chaos in the home. Rooms can no longer be used as they were intended, moving around the house is difficult, exits are blocked, and life inside the home becomes dysfunctional. Collectors typically keep their possessions well organized, and each item differs from other items to form an interesting and often valuable collection. Further, an important purpose of collecting is to display the special items so that others can appreciate them. People who hoard are seldom able to accomplish such goals.

Q: What kinds of things do hoarders typically save?

A: While it may appear that people who hoard save only trash or things of no real value, in fact most people who hoard save almost everything. Often this includes things that were purchased but never removed from their original wrappers. The most frequent items saved are clothes and newspapers. Other commonly hoarded items include containers, junk mail, books, and craft items.

Q: What factors contribute to the development of hoarding?

A: People who hoard often have deficits in the way they process information. For example, they are often highly distractible and show symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These symptoms make is difficult for them to concentrate on a task without being diverted by other things..." More (scroll towards the bottom of the Amazon order page for the balance of this interview)

Hoarding now Homeless

Mar 31, 2010: Report looks at causes of hoarding

By: Wendy Leung

The story of Guillermo Reyes, who was evicted this month after years of extreme pack-rat behavior, shines a light on a condition that medical experts have been researching since the 1990s.

As much as 5 percent of the population are believed to be hoarders, and researchers continue to learn more about this behavior.

Randy Frost, whose book "Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things" will be published this month, defines hoarding as excessive buying or acquiring of free things. Hoarders also have difficulty throwing things away and are generally disorganized.

"People who hoard look at possessions differently than most," Frost said. "When we look at a bottle cap, for instance, we think it's useless, it's trash. But those who hoard may focus on the texture or think about putting it in a collage. That object then takes a different hue."
Frost, who teaches at Smith College in Massachusetts, started studying hoarding when a student asked whether the behavior was associated with obsessive- compulsive disorder.

"We put an ad in the newspaper looking for pack rats," Frost said. "We got 100 calls."
The research of Frost and Gail Steketee of Boston University can now be read on a Web site through the International OCD Foundation, a sort of clearinghouse on hoarding.

Jack Samuels, an assistant professor at John Hopkins University, said hoarding was considered uncommon before Frost's research..." More



Mar 31, 2010: Hoarder now homeless


By: Wendy Leung


Eight years ago, Guillermo Reyes was considered a nuisance - a pack rat whose junk and recyclable items spilled out of his three-bedroom home and into the driveway.
Today, he is homeless.

Reyes, 78, a soft-spoken man with a kind face and a slight frame, was evicted this month from a home he purchased with cash in 1976. The eviction came after years of involvement by the city, courts, a court-appointed receiver and lender - agencies that tried to get Reyes to clean up a property that had become a major public safety concern for him and the neighborhood.

But when Reyes' pat-rack behavior didn't change, a loan was taken out on his property for maintenance. Last year, that loan matured and the eviction process began..." More

Interview with Randy Frost, Part I Compulsive Hoarding Disorder Definition and Causes

By Sere Halverson

Editor’s Note: We recently sat down with Randy Frost to discuss compulsive hoarding disorder – a fascinating and complex problem that affects from 2.5 to 5 percent of the population, many who are elderly.

Randy has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a professor of psychology at Smith College. He is one of the leading authorities on compulsive hoarding disorder. He has co-authored two books, a self-help book entitled Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving and Hoarding, and a therapist manual entitled Compulsive Hoarding and Acquiring: Therapist Guide and Workbook. Randy has been featured on The Dr. Oz Show, NPR and ABC News and has been interviewed for articles for numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Newsweek.

Randy had so much valuable information about the causes and characteristics of hoarding, and how best to try to help a loved one with a hoarding problem, that we’ve divided this interview into several parts that we’ll post throughout the coming weeks. Keep checking back for more.

icarevillage: Randy, will you explain to our readers what compulsive hoarding disorder is?

Randy: Compulsive hoarding is the acquisition of and the failure to discard a large number of possessions. Many of us engage in this type of behavior to some extent. We all collect things, we all have a lot more possessions than we probably need. But there are two important distinctions that point to a disorder rather than the more common behavior of collecting.

First, the accumulation is so vast that it clutters living spaces and makes them unusable. For instance, you can’t sit on the couch because it’s full of stuff, as is the kitchen sink, the kitchen table, the bathtub, and so on.

The other component is the level of distress and impairment the hoarding causes. While the person usually enjoys the act of collecting, the distress occurs when they worry about someone seeing the home, or become anxious about having to get rid of any possessions.

The hoarding causes significant impairment. It affects their ability to handle financial affairs, because when your home is filled with disorganized stuff, it’s easy to lose bills and important papers. The home is often unsafe because exits are blocked. There are fire hazards.

Appliances often stay broken. The person with a hoarding problem is afraid to have anyone into the house for repairs because the home’s condition may be reported to authorities. We’ve seen elderly people who have no working refrigerator, no working stove, sometimes no working hot water – sometimes no water at all, which means no working bathroom.

icarevillage: So we’re talking about much, much more than just a disorganized, messy house. Hoarding can become a serious problem that causes unfit living conditions and puts people in danger. Are the elderly more susceptible to compulsive hoarding?

Randy: We do see a lot of hoarding behavior in the elderly. But interestingly, when we ask older people how long they have been hoarding and how long their home has been like this, most of them tell us it’s been going on all their lives.

So we’re not sure if there is a separate kind of phenomenon of hoarding that begins in old age. Most of the research on the onset of hoarding suggests that the behavior itself starts sometime around age 12 or 13, but doesn’t become a problem for several decades after that.

One of the reasons why hoarding in the elderly may be so much more apparent to us is that while the hoarding behavior may have always been present, when people get older they lose some of their ability to cognitively process things. They lose some of their resources for handling things, they move more slowly, and so forth. So aging increases the severity of the behavior. But we suspect that the hoarding behavior probably was there most of their lives. And we’ve seen people who are as young as 19 with serious hoarding problems, so it’s definitely not limited to the elderly.

icarevillage: Do you know what causes hoarding?

Randy: We think that people who hoard process information in several unusual ways. A person with a hoarding problem pays attention to the unique detail in objects, such as the shape, the color, the texture, and so forth. For example, take a bottle cap. They might focus on these details and give it value rather than focusing on the fact that it’s a bottle cap without a bottle and therefore has no useful function.

Another feature of information processing that differs in the person that hoards has to do with the amount of information they pay attention to with respect to an object. So they will look at an object and focus on all its unusual details and those details will have meaning. When that person tries to make a decision about that object, they’re faced with many more details to consider than most of us are. Therefore, making any kind of decision requires taking a large amount of information and filtering it down and using it to come to a conclusion – and this is very difficult for them. It affects everything they do, from ordering off a menu to choosing what to wear in the morning. These are decisions they sometimes struggle with for long periods of time.

The other characteristic of people who hoard has to do with the way in which they organize their lives. Most of us organize our lives categorically. We get an electricity bill, we put it the category called bills, and when we need to find it we can go to that location. But people who hoard seem for the most part to organize visually and spatially instead. So if you ask them where their last electricity bill is, they’re likely to tell you that it is halfway down in the middle of the pile in this room, because that’s where they saw it last. Their organization occurs by remembering where objects are in space.

Now, a lot of us organize some things this way. My desk is organized like this – I have piles of things and I remember what’s there because I last saw it there. But if I were to do that for all my possessions, that system would break down quickly..." More

Professor's exploration of hoarding garners attention

By: Clare Lynch

Almost two decades ago, psychology professor Randy Frost's involvement with hoarding began with an inauspicious question posed in a seminar on obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"One of the students asked about hoarding, and I said I didn't know anything about it, and nobody else did either, because you don't see it often," Frost said. "We decided to see if we could find someone who had this problem who would be willing to be interviewed for the project. So we put an ad in the newspaper looking for pack rats or chronic savers, and we got a hundred telephone calls."

Frost's research has advanced rapidly since 1991. He is now a nationally known expert on compulsive hoarding behavior. His book on hoarding, Stuff, co-written with Gail Steketee, will be published in April.

Hoarding itself has garnered a similar increase in attention, progressing from a little-known subset of obsessive-compulsive disorder to a field in its own right.

Compulsive hoarding behavior has three components, Frost explained. Hoarders first have problems with over-acquisition through compulsive buying or collecting of free objects. They then become so attached to those objects that they are unable to let them go. Finally, hoarders have a problem organizing their belongings..." More

Ditching 800 Pounds of Clutter

By SUE SHELLENBARGER

The notion of a top-to-bottom spring cleaning seems quaint in an era when many families, including mine, can't even tame their dust bunnies—let alone a garage full of clutter.

Many people either hate cleaning or can't find time for it, based on the frequent emails I receive on the topic. Weekly hours spent on housework since 1976 have fallen 20% among married couples, 34% among single women and 16% among single men, according to a long-term study of 9,000 families at the University of Michigan. While no one measures clutter, "the number of possessions owned by the average person has risen dramatically" in the past 50 years, says Gail Steketee, dean of social work at Boston University and co-author of several books on hoarding.

A clutter-filled home can be a source of stress—and can spur squabbles among couples.

But how do you fit a thorough spring cleaning into a time-pressured schedule? To look for answers, I ran a six-week experiment. I surveyed 10 books by cleaning experts and picked the three approaches to managing housecleaning time that seemed most likely to fit into a busy schedule. Then, I divided my four-bedroom house into three zones and tested each approach in a different zone for about two weeks, while keeping up all my usual activities—working, cooking for and spending time with my family, hosting weekend guests, seeing friends and doing volunteer work. My house is a worthy laboratory; a packrat by nature, I have avoided doing a top-to-bottom deep cleaning and de-cluttering for longer than I care to admit. (OK, for two years.) Normally I only spend a couple of hours every week or two, vacuuming, tidying up and scrubbing bathrooms...." More

Delivery of internet treatment for compulsive hoarding (D.I.T.C.H.)

By: Jordana Muroff^a, , Gail Steketee^a, Joe Himle^b and Randy Frost^c

Available online 17 September 2009.

Abstract

This study tested the effectiveness of an existing private online CBT-based group intervention designed to help people with hoarding. Web-group participants were hypothesized to show more improvement in hoarding symptoms over time compared to those placed on a naturalistic waitlist. This web-based self-help group (N = 106 members, N = 155 waitlisted) includes a formal application process and requires that participants post action steps and progress at least once monthly. Members have access to educational resources on hoarding, cognitive strategies, and a chat-group. Potential research participants were invited to complete an anonymous web-based survey about their hoarding behaviors and clinical improvement on five occasions (3 months apart). The sample was mainly middle-aged, female and White. Regression analyses show that Recent members reported greater improvement and less clutter at 6 months (than Waitlist). Long-term members reported milder hoarding symptoms than Recent ones, suggesting benefits from group participation over time. All members showed reductions in clutter and hoarding symptoms over 15 months. Less posting activity was associated with greater hoarding severity. Online CBT-based self-help for hoarding appears to be a promising intervention strategy that may extend access to treatment. Evaluating the benefits of internet self-help groups is critical given growing popularity of and demand for web-based interventions..." More

^a Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA

^b University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

^c Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063, USA