Anxiety Disorders Center:
Compulsive Hoarding
Click here if you would like information
about a current study of compulsive hoarding being conducted by the Anxiety Disorders Center.
Note: This study is only available to people who live within a
40-minute
drive from Hartford.
Click here for
information about our intensive outpatient therapy program for compulsive
hoarding (part of our obsessive-compulsive disorder program). Note: This program is only available to people who live within a 30-minute
drive from Hartford.
Click here if
you would like to receive information by mail or e-mail about compulsive
hoarding, a list of hoarding treatment providers nationwide, information
about upcoming research studies, and announcements for new self-help
references for compulsive hoarding. Note: this option is available to
all, regardless of where you live.
Click here to view the first installment
of Dr. Tolin's discussions
about compulsive hoarding on The Oprah Winfrey Show and
click here to view the second installment.
Click here to view Dr. Tolin's third and fourth appearances discussing
compulsive hoarding on The Oprah Winfrey Show and
click here to take the hoarding self-assessment quiz mentioned on the
show.
Click here to view Dr. Tolin's first discussion about compulsive hoarding on
Good Morning America and
click here to view his second segment on GMA.
Click here to view Dr. Tolin's
discussion about compulsive hoarding on ABC News Medical Mysteries.
(Note: Once you follow the link above to the article, click on Health Video
towards the bottom of the left border and search for hoarding to access the
video.)
Click here to listen to Dr. Tolin's interview about compulsive hoarding
with
Psychjourney Podcasts.
Compulsive hoarding
is thought by many to be a subtype of
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). People are thought to have a compulsive
hoarding problem when they meet all three of these criteria:
- They regularly keep a large number of
possessions that most people would not consider to be very useful or
valuable.
- Their home, or parts of their home,
are so cluttered that they can no longer use those parts of their home for
their intended purpose.
- The clutter is so bad that it causes
significant distress or impairment.
The causes of compulsive hoarding
are not known, but researchers think that it results from problems in one or
more of these areas:
- Information
processing (e.g., problems categorizing or making decisions)
- Beliefs
about possessions (e.g., a sense of attachment to possessions, or fears of
forgetting things)
- Emotional
distress about discarding, which leads to avoidance of discarding
Treatment for compulsive
hoarding is still in the
experimental stage. Most medications that are useful for OCD do not appear
to be as useful for compulsive hoarding.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy, in
which the therapist visits the person’s home and helps them learn how to
manage the clutter and make appropriate decisions about discarding, may be
helpful.
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