Talk:Hoarding disorder

Permission for publishment?

Is it really a good idea to show that guy's face in the 70s photo? It looks a bit like this pic was added here without the guy's knowledge, unless it's actually the photographer himself that is shown. 85.4.75.65 (talk) 11:16, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

How

How do I help, or speak to my wife about this? There is not a room in the house that is not filled with junk. We had to buy a bigger house just to store the stuff. She does not seem to be open to talk about it and I do not want to hurt her. I NEED Help!!

Ward

new additions

I added to the top part of the page some new information about hoarding and social function because I thought it was necessary to say a little in the introduction about the social implications of hoarding. I also added two new sections on interpersonal problems and emotional intelligence and hoarding relationship to life events Finally, I added some newer information about the relationship between hoarding and OCD, in order to make my information flow with what was there I needed to delete some information and rearrange some of the other.

Ward, there is significant evidence that compulsive hoarding is a medical problem. Unfortunately Wikipedia cannot offer medical advice. You might consider talking to a medical professional. -- The Anome 10:47, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

There are a number of links for support for hoarders and their loved ones at http://www.reclaimingdignity.com .

Possible removal of text

"How one person could fill an entire one-bedroom apartment with such garbage after only three years, leaves one wondering."

This appears to be a somewhat unconventional or unprofessional statement to make in an encyclopedia. Shouldn't it be sort of like a "just the facts, ma'am" approach?

I suggest the whole of that second example is removed. It's uncited and I don't think adds anything to the example already given. - Vaughan 13:09, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Vaughan and have removed the example. Sietse 14:33, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The reference to "Oscar the Grouch" is absolutely unnecessary on this page and only contributes further to the stigma associated with this disorder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.0.104.222 (talk) 18:06, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

messiness

Some expert should add information here or probably in a new article about messiness that also explains the distinction between it and compulsive hoarding. Comments can and should also be provided on at least some available relevant online help sites such as http://www.messies.com and http://clutterless.org and the abovementioned http://www.reclaimingdignity.com.

Wikipedia tries to avoid offering medical advice, but it can link to such advice and describe it generally, as it does on many less "controversial", less psychological, and more traditional health topics, e.g. Tinea versicolor. Another good and more relevant model for the present article is workaholism although that article is much too short considering how widespread and serious the problem of workaholism is. --Espoo 10:44, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Is "messiness" the same as clutter? Tinlinkin 05:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Bad link?

The link http://www.archive.org/details/MomsMessyHouse doesn't work for me. Is that just because I use Firefox instead of IE? Or should it just be deleted? Thue | talk 20:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I just went there using Firefox 9.0.1, and it worked for me. WillieBlues (talk) 18:08, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I found this article that says it is a distinct medical disorder

It seems that they found that it is only distantly related to OCD, not even using the same area of the brain, and not responding to the usual OCD treatments.

http://discovermagazine.com/2004/oct/psychology-of-hoarding —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.100.45.84 (talk) 21:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

Thanks, I've incorporated that into the article. Some of the research described was already being mentioned (at least as of [1]). Kingdon (talk) 01:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

digital pack rat

i found the article on Digital Pack Rat and saw that "pack rat" links here. Is there room to make mention that acquiring digital items could be part of this concept also? Minnaert 21:02, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Paxil bogeyman

Paxil was unfairly singled out as a risky drug in a way I felt violated NPOV. I tried to subdue this. However, my rework still sucks on many levels. The references supplied do not fully support the claims, nor do I have personal knowledge on these claims. The source I used for the list of drugs did not even spell several of the drugs correctly. MaxEnt 02:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Images Original research?

Where is the citation that shows that any of these images come from people who have been professionally diagnosed as compulsive horders?--Crossmr (talk) 05:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. One or two of these pictures just look very messy (like a student's room). Macgroover (talk) 13:14, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Provision/mention for compulsive data hoarding?

Hail everyone! :-)

After reading this article - And noting numerous strong similarities between the listed symptoms (Bibliomania in particular) and the rather messy way that I tend to organise data on my PCs hard drive - I would like to suggest that a section (And possibly a dedicated page) for compulsive hoarding of computer data could be added, possibly under the name "Datamania" or something similar. This might also correspond with what Minnaert mentioned above with regards to the Digital Pack Rats redirection.

Having carried out maintenance on the computer systems of several different people - And noticing that there is a frequent tendancy for people to keep piles of repeated data right across their filesystems - Data hoarding is probabally not an isolated thing, and personally I would consider it notable enough for Wikipedia. I would happily write up a whole section and page for this matter, but it would most likely be classed as original research and subject to a speedy deletion. :-(

Please copy any responses and comments to this suggestion to my Talk page as well. Many thanks in advance! :-)

DieselDragon (Talk) - 05 October 2008CE = 02:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

And anything like that would have to come with a citation. Unfortunately your personal observations fail WP:V and can't be used to establish the veracity or notability of content. A single mention in a MS quiz doesn't really make this worth mentioning--Crossmr (talk) 11:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Bibliomania is already a reported condition, with digitized literature/media easily categorizable under it. It's true that there is little to none research specifically on hoarding wrt digital materials, so far. But as such, I'd second Talk's basic idea: the digital counterpart of bibliomania ought to be recognized explicitly, somewhere. Even if just in passing, as in in prose on the article on bibliomania (for now).

I mean, I suddenly feel much like he does: I have had all of the symptoms for all my life, with gigabytes of scientific plain text, file format descriptions, standards texts and what not, two thirds of which I've never read. My parents show definite signs of compulsive hoarding on the physical side (their every move produces entire cubic metres of waste, and the emotional process from valued possession to trash never becomes any easier), and I for example battle with a couple of other, specific compulsions myself, like hoarding complete sets of pens/writing implements, and having/preferring to always read a complete set of books/series instead of a single one. Plus evenwhile I don't believe I feel much for my trash, it still keeps piling up so that I can't get rid of it until somebody else helps me; so much so that the social worker in charge of my (severe) case of alcoholism immediately took note, and seemed to refer to packrat behavior. Much before today. After reading the description of compulsive hoarding, it's eerily similar to what I do, then, and what DieselDragon also describes.

Even if this is just an anecdote, again, I think a literature search would be in order, as would be a passing mention about digital bibliography in the relevant page.

And then, as an even bolder idea, when these kinds of anecdotes spring up within the WikiPedia editor community, it'd be a shame to see them wasted. I'm rather sure this and many other ideas would be valuable, even if they cannot be incorporated into an encyclopedia just now; them being just anecdotes. Thus, perhaps there should be a well-organized, formal channel which feeds these kinds of ideas back into the scientific community for citations, or even genuine, de novo study, where supported by more than one comment, and interesting an sich? Could such a backchannel/way-of-feedback perhaps be established within the WikiPedia community/editorship? I mean, very few people go as far as to discuss *totally* irrelevant issues on talk pages wrt such esoteric issues as this one, at least. It'd be a shame to lose the "flagging" for further inquiry, there... Decoy (talk) 20:51, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Compulsive Hoarding: This article NEEDS to be edited

Compulsive hoarding is but a part of compulsiveness. As such, it stems from the basic fear of change, which seeks safety, security and stability. The article in its present form leaves the impression that hoarding = messiness, which is not true at all. The messy rooms seen on the page can easily be rooms of hysterical or even scizophrenic individuals.

It is true, rarely compulsive individuals may collect and store in disarray. Most of the times however, the compulsive collects and stores in an orderly manner, cataloguing and arranging stacks of items. These items are there to make the compulsive feel safer and secure. Therefore, examples of compulsive hoarding are:

1) Amassing collections of material items - CDs, DVDs, postal stamps, coins, tools, books etc. Typically the amounts are big, the person is either using them inefficiently or not at all. Most of the time these are well catalogued. Often there are more than one copy of each item.

2) Amassing collections of non-material possessions - publishing as many articles as possible, even most useless ones; signing up for as many work trips as possible; attending as many conferences as possible, even insignificant ones; working as many jobs as possible; working as many hours as possible; occupying as many positions as possible at work/church/club etc.

3) Data collection and its overprotection - every data bit is collected, catalogued in tables, copied multiple times to different media. These can be home picture/movies on CD/DVD, data from work, scanned information, personal data from old hard drives etc. The compulsive spends a lot of time and resources in building such data collections.

A borderline example would be stinginess and amassing of large sums of money. This can qualify as compulsive behavior, as long as the lifestyle of the individual is compulsive. However, non-compulsives can also be stingy or stack piles of money for other dysfunctional reasons.

-J. Polihronov November 27, 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.100.16.158 (talk) 18:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

My wife and I are living in our house just over four years, we have wedding presents everywhere, pictures in frames, newspapers, magazines, drawers with plenty pens , as regards the furniture once it's in the house she couldn't care less if it was never put in place,as regards reading material she doesn't go out and buy, but if it's brought into the house it can be put on a pile and may or may not be read in time but will only be thrown out if or when it is read, is all this possible a hoarding compulsive problem —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.219.141 (talk) 10:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Section On "Digital Hoarding" Should Be Removed

I question the inclusion of the section titled "digital hoarding." Compulsive hoarding, animal hoarding, and bibliomania are recognized diagnoses, and the references cited are sound. In contrast, "digital hoarding" is not a recognized condition, and the section included here is merely based on several superficial articles in popular-level publications.

68.187.137.5 (talk) 14:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC)Billy Floyd

Until all the extra external drives start to accumulate to where they fill up the house like old newspapers, it's really a non-issue. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 14:16, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia may be guilty of this! But seriously, that section states "Digital hoarding is not a currently recognized subtype of compulsive hoarding by the DSM." This is odd, because earlier in the article it is stated "there is no definition of compulsive hoarding in accepted diagnostic criteria (such as the current DSM)." The Digital Hoarding section makes it seem like compulsive hoarding is in the DSM? Шизомби (talk) 02:22, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The section seems even worse today. I would consider flagging it under NPOV especially because of "often through illegal means such as BitTorrent." being in the first sentence. BFeely (talk) 22:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Term "Disposophobia" should not link here

The term "disposophobia" was coined by Ron Alford, a professional specializing generally in organization and particularly in cleanup of hoarding situations. I'm not sure how it came to link here -- possibly someone created a stub entry on "disposophobia" that a Wikipedia editor decided didn't need its own entry. As Alford uses the term, "disposophobia" is a less serious, nonpathological condition; it is not synonymous with "compulsive hoarding," which is pathological.

The term might belong in this article in a passage defining compulsive hoarding by comparing it to less serious conditions. Don't think it should directly link, however.

--Athansor (talk) 20:04, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Though it's not an exact synonym, my understanding of the term "disposophobia" is that it is sufficiently closely related to warrant a redirect. If it is not a pathological condition then it is not a true phobia. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 10:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I know that the term "disposophobia" is used the Collyer Brothers article, and redirects to this one. Not sure of any other places it might be. I've been looking around through WP and Google Scholar (will try to hit some journal databases tomorrow) to see just what I think should be done with it. I didn't want to just axe it in the C. Bros. article before being sure about it. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 21:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Levels of Hoarding

Discussions on the A&E website regarding the show Hoarders led me to a document published by the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization (NSGCD) entitled The NGSCD Clutter Hoarding Scale. In sum, the document distinguishes five levels of hoarding with Level V (Roman number 5) being the worst. I will probably incorporate this document into this Wikipedia article at some point, unless someone else beats me to it. // Internet Esquire (talk) 05:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The current content references the level/type of professional services recommended for each hoarding level, rather than defining each level. The source doc also contains a descriptive scale of the hoarding levels...I propose that the scale is better suited for inclusion under this section's title. This is my 1st time on Discussion, so I've made no edits, but rather await feedback. Innerglow61 (talk) 06:16, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the contents of the scale (I through V in each of four categories) is far more useful than the almost useless descriptions currently there. Is there agreement that someone should add that table? 75.25.120.153 (talk) 09:53, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Case studies: is "chips" meant in the American sense?

"Both of the doors to the outside were blocked, so entry to the house was through the garage and the kitchen, where the table and chairs were covered with papers, newspapers, bills, books, half-consumed bags of chips and her children's school papers dating back ten years."

(my emboldening). Since this appears to be referenced to a print source, I can't check myself, but the footnote ref links to a website which appears to be American, so am I right in thinking that "chips" is used in the American sense (i.e. what we call "crisps" in Britain: crispy, usually potato-based snackfood available in various flavours) rather than the British meaning (i.e. "fries" - long, thinnish potato pieces fried and served hot)? This may seem like a trivial point, but the latter would be more problematic if left lying around for long periods, since foods with a high moisture content are more likely to grow mould, smell offensive, attract insects etc. "Crisps", on the other hand, tend to leave crumbs which get everywhere and are uncomfortable to stand or sit on. Can someone clarify which is meant? Contains Mild Peril (talk) 08:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

"Chips" refer to American snack foods, i.e. potato chips. Your crisps are our chips, our fries are your chips!! 71.61.163.242 (talk) 05:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Please translate, someone!!

I really want someone to translate this article into Chinese; my mom's a hoarder and I need her to read this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.109.199.50 (talk) 18:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

bad references

• [4] This is a footnote, not a reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding#cite_note-3
• [14] This is a footnote, not a reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding#cite_note-13
• [22] This is a footnote, not a reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding#cite_note-21
• [25] This is a footnote, not a reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding#cite_note-24

draeath (talk) 02:35, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Advertisement

"For more information on OCD, go to www.ocfoundation.org. This is the national OCD foundation (now changing its name to the "IOCDF" or the International OCD Foundation)." I recommend moving this to external links, or removing it all together. For now I'm removing it.--174.130.231.162 (talk) 03:18, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Levels

The section on levels appears to be thinly-veiled advertising for a professional organizer's trade group and should be removed. It admits that it goes against standard psychological classifications that characterize it as a mental illness and instead tries to paint it as the result of pathologically poor organizational skills. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.168.1.199 (talk • contribs)

These "levels" read like complete nonsense to me. I'd delete them right now, but I'm afraid they might be needed sometime. ;-) Ecphora (talk) 02:00, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this - section on levels definitely seems like an advertisement for "professional organizers". It should be deleted unless someone can justify its existence.Paul Ganssle (talk) 03:20, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree. "Professional organizer" seems to be a scam profession working towards the medicalization of messiness. Also, most of the pictures on the page seem to be of unremarkable messy rooms, and I'd like to know what evidence there is that they belong to people with a particular disorder (which isn't even one mentioned in the DSM anyway). 81.131.17.87 (talk) 05:32, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

As per this discussion, I've removed the section on "Levels". I'd be receptive to the idea of including some mention of "Levels" that doesn't give them the undue weight that this seemed to be. Perhaps a sentence somewhere that says something like, "Professional organizers classify hoarding behavior into five different levels" or something that describes what the levels are and doesn't sound like advertising copy. Paul Ganssle (talk) 19:33, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

TV - addition

CSI - Hoarding Can Kill - Season 11, Episode 5 (2011) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.0.25.42 (talk) 03:20, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Handyman solution to cluttered basement

I'm a handyman and Wikipedia contributor, and recently I had a project to de-clutter a basement. Here's a write-up of it on Google called Wheeled Wonders -- basically encouraging the homeowner to throw stuff out, and building movable shelves for stuff that was worth keeping. People who follow this article may want to put an external link to the write-up if you feel it will help people with this problem.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Um, nice work with your client's basement, but does the "before" illustration really belong in a photo gallery representing compulsive hoarding disorders? It's a basement. As far as I can tell, its primary purpose is storage. If someone's actual living space were that full of clutter I'd accept that they obviously had a serious problem, but this is a storage space, and they voluntary called in a professional to help make it more usable, and showed a willingness to throw out some excess stuff. I don't see any evidence illustrated or described in your link of the sort of hoarding which is the subject of this article. Is your client happy to have photos of their home and belongings used in this way? Contains Mild Peril (talk) 03:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Trust me the basement was way out of control (so was the rest of the house). There was no room to walk practically. It was impossible to find things. (The client will always remain anonymous). I'm not a medical type who can say what's compulsive or not; rather, I'm on the fixing end; and one way to solve it was to get the client to throw out stuff by placing things in garbage-like bags (to encourage the client to see it as garbage). But I believe the whole hoarding thing affects lots of us, including me! I'll leave it up to you and others who watch this article what to do with pictures or links. :) --Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Your above comment, "I believe the whole hoarding thing affects lots of us, including me!" is a very pertinent observation. Many disorders are essentially more extreme forms of normal behaviour. Most people, for example, drink alcohol, spend money on things we don't need, feel bad when we don't get our own way, fear certain things a bit more than we know is rational; some people do these things more than others, but only in a minority of cases would such things escalate to the level of a clinical disorder. Hoarding is one such behaviour. I don't want to discuss details of your client's home and lifestyle because it's really none of my business, but concerns had previously been expressed about relevance and privacy issues relating to other images on the page. Unfortunately we didn't really get any answers about these older pictures, which makes it harder to judge whether they belong here. It's good that you're still here to offer some clarification on this one at least. I am somewhat reassured by your pledge to maintain your client's anonymity, though you can't really guarantee that nobody will recognise their basement or stuff from your pictures. To be honest I personally would be more comfortable if we avoided using recent pictures of clutter whose owners have not themselves authorised such use; however I'm not aware of any policy or guideline prohibiting such use when no person is included in the picture, and since Wikipedia is not censored, my personal feeling is not in itself a reason to remove photos.
It is evident to me that you do actually have some understanding of the psychology of hoarding. I read your write-up in which you recognise the importance of encouraging owners to make their own decisions about what to dispose of, and that an outsider trying to impose their opinions on such matters could elicit a defensive reaction and thus be counterproductive: this is consistent with other referenced articles. I like your theory that the psychological association of using garbage type bags may affect the client's perception of the bags' contents. I have worked in a charity shop where a lot of high quality donations have arrived in black garbage bags, so in my mind the humble garbage bag also has positive connotations of giving. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 15:00, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks for your thoughtful response. Let's not use the picture then here if that makes things easier. For me, it's difficult to draw lines between the "somewhat out of control" keeping of stuff, and hoarding. But maybe there are Wikipedia articles which talk about ways to keep stuff under control (without getting into issues such as normal-but-somewhat-excessive and clinical hoarding)? Or strategies to deal with STUFF which I think we all have to varying extents. :) --Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Information hoarding does not belong here

There seems to be little relationship between information hoarding as described in this section and compulsive hoarding proper. I suggest that the section should be deleted entirely. If people think there is value in it, perhaps a disambiguation would be in order, but it does not belong here. It is also worded very strangely. JLA87 (talk) 01:21, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

It reads like an editorial with citations. And you're right, it has almost nothing to do with this topic... unless someone's house is filled to the brim with disks, the way classic hoarders homes are filled with newspapers and the like. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:34, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Questionable external reference

I think the first external link (A guide to understanding the traits and compulsions of compulsive hoarding including what to do if your family member is a compulsive hoarder) should be removed. It's a link to a web page selling a book, yet the web page or the book do not disclose the author or the author's credentials. Why should such a link be allowed? Does this person really know anything about this problem? Perhaps the person added the link him/herself, in which case it's just shameless marketing.

15:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by GTGeek88 (talk • contribs)

Therapeutic Interventions

I am interested in learning more about this statement: "Research on internet-based CBT treatment for the disorder has also shown promising results." Would you be able to speak more about the specific interventions that may be offered online and why they might be used instead of (or in conjunction with) in-person treatment. Kadams2 (talk) 20:07, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Characteristics and kinds

In the paragraph headed 'Characteristics' three types or kinds of hoarders are introduced.

However, there is no prior text explaining (for example) that there are only three types or who it was who first identified that there were only three types - etc.

Has this text been edited out - or are these three types merely random examples?

86.176.165.167 (talk) 05:22, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Resources

I am editing this article for my history and systems of psychology class. I ill be using the following resources to add my information:

Blom, Rianne M., Samuels, Jack F., Grados, Marco A., Yong, Chen O., Bienvenu, O. Joseph, Riddle, Mark A., Liang, Kung-Yee, Brandt, Jason, Nestadt, Gerald. (Dec. 2011) Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Volume 25 (issue 8), pp. 1139-1144.

Ayers, Catherine R., Saxena, Sanjaya, Golsham, Shakrokh, Wetherell, Julie Loebach. (Feb, 2010) International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, Vol. 3 (Issue 24), pp.142-149

Mataix-Cols, David, Frost, Randy O., Pertusa, Alberto, Clark, Lee Anna, Saxena, Sanjaya, Leckman, James F., Stein, Dan J., Matsunaga, Hisato, Wilhelm, Sabine. (June 2010) Depression and Anxiety Volume 27 (Issue 6), pp. 566-572.

Tolin, David F., Meunier, Suzanne A., Frost, Randy O., Steketee, Gail. (Sept. 2010) Depression and Anxiety Volume 27 (Issue 9), pp. 1091-4269. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpletzke (talk • contribs) 14:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)