Hoarder’s Conference
Image by Earthworm
The keynote speaker, Dr. Christiana Bratiotis, a cognitive therapist specialist on hoarders gave updates on hoarding research.
Confirmed for me that depression is co-occuring with hoarding, but it is not known whether this is a result of the clutter and resulting isolation or a cause. Social phobia is also co-occuring thus it is hard for hoarders to accept help from those set up to help them. She didn’t mention organizers at all (see my notes under UCSF Research for why that might be.) There is also post traumatic stress syndrome and substance abuse.
Where once hoarding was considered an OCD thing, now they are finding that there is not that much overlap. Just as many hoarders suffer from ADHD with distraction getting them off task. The benefit of being OCD is that the person is more likely to realize that they have a problem with clutter whereas non-OCD hoarders stop seeing the stuff as clutter and so are perceived by family as being willfully disobedient.
Treatment program described included weekly office visits to a therapist, and in-home visits to help declutter. Also patients were taken to places where they would normally pick-up stuff and they practiced not picking up stuff. Family consultations were also offered as was a clean-out of the home with trained therapeutic team.
There was a high response on the part of the clients who went through this 6 month to a year long program. It made them feel they were getting better. It was also a good treatment for depression since the client had to get out of bed, get dressed and actually break their isolation. Plus having people, especially cheerful undergrads visit them in their homes helped socialize them. The home visits were crucial. Reading books on hoarding helped very little. Support groups were also crucial to help reduce the stigma and social phobia. Mutual aid of the group instilled hope and motivation.
There is not empirical evidence that deprivation i.e. The Great Depression had anything to do with creating hoarders. However a personal loss like a miscarriage, a death in the family, being raped etc. was much more likely to have an impact.
Also of interest was the age when the hoarding emerged which was quite young, highest in middle school age, followed by high school. However, it is not considered a real problem for seeking of treatment until middle age to elderly. The problem just gets worse with age and the treatment gets less result with older patients.
And finally hoarding is only an issue in cultures where private ownership of property is important. In cultures where there is only communal ownership of property there is no incidence of hoarding. A very interesting comment on the pathology of private ownership.
Tables here were color coded so that those who did not want to be caught on camera would know where to sit. Hoarders in attendance may be in the closet, perhaps.
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