What causes hoarding?

Hoarding is a fascinating subject, and although we have all those reality shows to thank for bringing the issue to national attention, they have done little to help shed light on what causes hoarding, or how to fix it. Recent studies outlined in this interesting article on "The science of hoarding" are beginning to illuminate the underlying causes of hoarding, although we are a long way from a cure.

When faced with organizational tasks, hoarders show "increased brain activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, a region of the brain associated with decision making." This makes it more difficult to make decisions, requiring much more effort than normal to finish an organizational task. Hoarders also have trouble performing tasks that test categorization skills, such as simple tasks like grouping objects by type or by shared characteristics (like color or shape). They also show a marked difficulty remembering sequences, and most do poorly on tests that measure attention.

Based on these findings, we can start to see what a daunting task it can be to recover from hoarding. Organizing and getting rid of clutter takes a lot of sequential planning and decision-making.

Imagine just going through a single desk drawer: Every item has to be categorized, grouped with other like items, and decisions made about what to get rid of and what to keep. Some things may need to be repaired, so you have to make the decision about whether to repair them (and how, and when) or throw them away. Just deciding whether something should be given to someone, dropped off at a thrift store, or thrown away can be time-consuming for hoarders.

Multiply that by the millions of objects in a hoarder's home, and it's no wonder people give up. As tempting as it may be for non-hoarders to just take it all out to the trash, this wholesale discarding is extremely upsetting for the hoarder in question, and only makes the situation work. Slow, steady progress with a trusted partner seems to be the best way to go.

Image courtesy Flickr/mandiberg